How does a 28-year-old from a small town in Kazakhstan become an in-demand interior designer with projects featured in The New York Times and AD? “Am I really a designer? Is this real?” asks Fariz Mamedov. “It feels like a fairytale.”
An understandable response: not so long ago, Fariz explains, he was singing in a boy band, playing piano and bayan (Russian accordion), and teaching voice lessons to children while shoehorning in journalism studies at university. Things went well enough that he was able to buy an apartment for his parents and younger sister so they could join him in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, majestically situated in the foothills of the Trans-Ili Alatau mountains—a 13-hour drive south of where he grew up.
Fariz took on pulling together his family’s new apartment himself. Always drawn to design, he had decorated a room in his grandmother’s place as a kid and was feeling ready for a new creative outlet. Thoroughly engaged by the process, Fariz started posting his work. Before he knew it, he not only had a following but his first clients. That led to his own small firm, FM Interiors, a portfolio, representation by an American publicist (he cold-called Karine Monié after another designer thanked her on social media), and the aforementioned articles. “Interior design,” Fariz tells us, “has become not just a profession but my whole life.”
At Remodelista, without knowing any of this, we took note of Fariz’s website (courtesy of Karine) and were intrigued by a pied-à-terre in Almaty that he designed for empty nesters. In particular, we liked the apartment’s blue-trimmed kitchen with ventilated cupboards, a café table, and a hard-to-pinpoint mashup of references. Currently at work on a house for these same clients, Fariz was happy to fill us in on the project.
Photographs by Damir Otegen, courtesy of Fariz Mamedov/FM Interiors (@farizmamedov_interiors), styled by Aigerim Mamyraliyeva and Fariz Mamedov.
Above: “I wanted to create an interior on the verge of Parisian chic, Scandinavian restraint, and Kazakh hospitality,” Fariz continues. Toward that end, the cabinets, cupboards, and island were all custom built to his design and the oak floor is herringbone parquet. 
Above: The sink counter, backsplash, and island are topped with quartz stone—”it’s highly durable and wear-resistant, two key requests from my client,” says Fariz. He used paint from Danish brand Flügger on the walls: Offwhite and Museum Blue. Note the stove hood “integrated into a plaster enclosure.”
Above: The island’s Blue Pendant Lamps are a Morten & Jonas design from Northern of Oslo and the felt-upholstered Pipi Stools by Robert Paoli are from MIDJ.
More kitchens with blue accents and ventilation holes:
- Trend Alert: The Cult of the Blue Kitchen, 10 Favorites
- The Plain English Power in Numbers Kitchen
- Steal This Look: A Bright Blue, Budget-Forward Brooklyn Kitchen
- A Serene Space in Pale Blue at Casa C’Alma in Portugal
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