Oksana Kozyreva changed her life in two months: she bought an apartment, started a new job and made repairs herself, although there were many difficulties.
19 September 2019
Mom’s idea was to turn the ventilation cabinet into a niche with shelves. The builder swore with us, did not want to do it, thought it was stupid. But we insisted. They found stone tiles for decoration, made shelves, now there are flowers and even a TV set.
– This is my first own apartment. She took out a mortgage five years ago. For me, her purchase became a global event, because after a divorce from my first husband, she was rushing about like a mad fox, my son was growing up (Nikita will be 7 years old in November. – Approx. “Antennas”), it was urgent to come up with something. It so happened that the bank approved the loan when I started a new job, and there really were no free days to travel and look at the housing, but it was necessary to choose quickly. There was only enough money for the region. The agent and I drove all over the Moscow region for a whole week in the evenings.
Our grandfather uses the drawing board, he studies on it with his grandchildren. On the bedside table under the TV is a picture that a boy from the family that participated in the Dachny Answer embroidered with his own hands, and gave it to me as a keepsake.
Since she was going to transport her parents from Cherepovets to help with the child, the most important thing in the apartment was the layout. I wanted a two-room one, not elongated in a line, but a so-called undershirt, but only the first options came across. I dreamed of a big kitchen, because it was 9 meters in my home. It was rather big, three of us with mom and dad were accommodated, but then I realized that there would be four of us, and the area was needed.
In the last apartment I looked at, I was immediately bribed by the pink entrance hall, that the rooms face different sides, and when I entered the kitchen almost 12 sq. m, I realized: the issue has been resolved. The agent asked me not to pretend that I liked the place. I kept myself in control, although I was ready to buy it right away. And then it turned out that a bail had already been paid for him.
The tape recorder appeared in our 80s, my dad brought it from Afghanistan even before I was born. Since childhood, I wanted to become a journalist, so I came up with radio programs and recorded them on this tape recorder. He has been with us for over 30 years.
I was upset, but somehow relaxed, and then a couple of days later the realtor called and said that the deal had failed, the apartment was on sale again. Literally in a week we completed the documents, and I moved. The first time I looked at the apartment late in the evening and did not even know what kind of view it was, only when the deal was concluded, I saw that I was lucky, the windows overlook a beautiful forest.
I remember that I paid an agent for the deal, and there were only three kopecks left until my salary, and the inside of the apartment was completely empty: municipal renovations, bare walls, an old stove with one working burner. The first week I slept on an inflatable mattress, in a multicooker there was only buckwheat with sausages, but I was incredibly happy.
I love purple and lilac shades, so in the kitchen there are lavender flowers, table napkins, cups, everything in these colors.
It so happened that in two months everything changed in my life. In September, she got a new job (Oksana was the leading economic column on the Moscow 24 channel, from there she moved to the Russia 24 channel. – Approx. “Antennas”), bought an apartment, and in October I was offered to lead the “Housing question”. I decided to quit and take the risk. But the program has nothing to do with the repair in my home, I just came to it then, I still adapted.
Probably, this is a minus, but I do not know how to use work contacts for personal purposes. I found builders myself through the classifieds site. The repair was done in two stages. First of all, the kitchen. I always wanted a light one, such as we have never had, because white is impractical.
I grew up in the 90s, in constant renovation, when transforming my own home, trying to make it cozy, was a hobby. Thanks to my mother, the walls of our apartment were decorated with all kinds of wallpaper – both flowers and stripes. But in my home, I wanted more cleanliness of space. Therefore, I bought light polka-dot wallpaper for the kitchen, which was sold for the nursery. They were also enough for the corridor.
This chair was made by my husband Pasha. I gave him a master class in carpentry on February 23rd. He went there four times, made a chair with his own hands and brought it home. It fits perfectly into the interior.
I thought about a color set, but since I always dreamed of white, I stopped at it. While it was being made, it was necessary to choose an apron for the kitchen. I saw an exhibition sample of Spanish tiles with coffee cups, stripes and peas in one furniture store, but it was not for sale. I hardly found it on the Internet. All the elements – strips, cups, polka dots – had to be bought separately and made a drawing out of them yourself. I sat and calculated, imagined how it would look.
When the tiles were brought in, I laid an apron out of it right on the concrete floor and admired, somewhere there was even a photo of this moment. We ordered the kitchen in the fall, while waiting for it for several months, we lived on pasties from a nearby store: we were so tired of cooking on one burner that we bought them and some kind of grilled chicken.
We took the large room under the living room. We made wall murals here, and I’m not a fan of such decor, but for some reason I liked this graphics with Paris. Gradually, when the time came to teach the eldest son Nikita to sleep separately, the living room became a nursery. To divide it into zones, they put a rack, next to it a bed, and it turned out, as it were, two separate spaces. Now there are already two of my sons (the presenter married a second time in 2016, in 2018 Yegor was born… – Approx. “Antennas”) are happy to play here.
When we sold housing in Cherepovets, we gave it directly with furniture, because both my mother and I do not like old things. But something came from there – a white chest of drawers in the hallway and a large sofa in the nursery.
What she furnished on a leftover basis was the bedroom. It is also bright, like the whole apartment. Its windows face the sunny side. I remember that I didn’t have curtains for a long time, so the heat in the room started at 6 in the morning. But the problem was solved when, in our own Moscow region, I found blackout curtains with photo printing – orchids at a factory. They liked the delicate color transition and pleasant fabric. I picked up all the rest of the textiles for them. There is complete minimalism in the bedroom: a good bed, a mattress, and more, I decided not to rack my brains.
I bought the armchair for the dressing table in the bedroom by accident. I went to a furniture store for something else, but I saw it and took it.
Three years have passed since the renovation. The memories of how I chose each tile, laminate, door are still so dear to me that even now I would not alter anything globally. Maybe she would add some more color, because she began to treat him differently, much more boldly.
I would have already taken up the arrangement of new housing. My husband and I have a dilemma on this score: to buy a bigger apartment or still a house. This is a subject of great controversy. When I started to conduct “Dachny Answer”, this program changed me, a former urbanist. Now I understand how cool it is to live with children in the house, how great it is to be in nature. The only drawbacks are traffic jams, so we haven’t decided yet. Although, when I bought this apartment, I didn’t care that the road to Moscow could take one and a half to two hours.
OKSANA KOZYREVA
ON TV
“Housing issue”, Saturday, 12:00
“Dachny answer”, Sunday, 11:55, NTV