Living with house plants and botanical art Dutch designer and artist Maaike Koster at home

Dutch artist-designer Maaike Koster wears a lot of hats, and all of them are leaf green: A botanical painter, she has her own online print emporium, My Deer Art Shop, and recently illustrated the indoor plant guide Urban Botanics. She also runs My Deer’s, a year-old design gallery in Haarlem, the Netherlands, arranged like a living room filled with art and greenery. It’s located within walking distance of her family home, and both showcase Koster’s work as an interior designer—one who, not surprisingly, has a way with houseplants. This past summer on Gardenista, we visited her flagship store—see Portraits of Plants by a Dutch Painter. We were so enchanted that today we’re paying her a house call.

Photography courtesy of Maaike Koster.

Located on a brick-paved street at the edge of Haarlem&#8 — Above: Located on a brick-paved street at the edge of Haarlem’s city center, the mansard-roofed house was built in 1920 and retains its original stained-glass windows and paneled doors. The third floor is an addition that Koster designed to gain a master bedroom and studio after her two sons, now 5 and 7, were born.

Koster studied graphic design at the Royal Academy of Arts in the Hague; she worked as a media agency creative director before branching off on her own and devoting herself to her twin passions of botanical art and interior design. Her husband, Jeff, is the sales manager for Liebherr in the Netherlands. They use their curious cargo bike—Urban Arrow’s Family model—to transport their kids to school (the front chamber opens into a seat) and to carry things to and from the store.

&#8 — Above: “We combined the house’s classical details with modern/Scandinavian influences, and, of course, lots of plants,” Koster tells us. “To me, it’s the combination of styles that makes an interior dynamic and interesting.”

White-painted wood floors throughout set the Nordic tone: “We started with two layers of primer and finished with two layers of Sikkens Rubbol BL Satura, which doesn’t require a top coat.”

Flying High and other prints from Koster&#8 — Above: Flying High and other prints from Koster’s bird series hang above an Eames lounge. Read the surprising history of the iconic chair in Object Lessons.

Above: The marble mantel is original; Koster uses it to display simple greenery, such as epiphytes and cuttings in clear glass vases. Note that she keeps the surrounding wall free of art to balance the busy surroundings and instill an overall tranquility. The living room opens to a leafy terrace.

The succulent in the gray pot by the French doors is a type of lepismium. The hanging plants include ric rac cactus (Cryptocereus anthonyanus) and string of hearts (Ceropegia woodii).