Check out Belinda Den Ouden’s Instagram feed and you will see that her bio reads: “I love interior design. But I have fragrance allergy and migraines. So my house has dark walls, is non-toxic, scent-free and cool.” But it hadn’t always been this way. Belinda, who is Dutch, and husband Eef and her three children, Daisy (12), Liz (10) and Mike (5), all lived in a 100-year old house in Alkmaar, a town famed for its cheese market, 40km north of Amsterdam.
“It was lovely and small, dark and damp,” she says. “The street was narrow and allowed for little light to come in. I desperately longed for a white, clean, tidy home so in an attempt to make it seem big and bright, I painted everything white. We even had a white floor!”
Although Belinda had always been troubled by migraines, they seldom lasted longer than 48 hours, but in October 2015, one came that didn’t go away, and it seemed to be triggered by scent. “I banned perfume from my home and felt much better. I also switched to organic cleaning, washing and personal care products.” However, over time, her symptoms intensified to the point where exhaust fumes, food additives, fragrant flowers, cleaning products, “even the smell of the laundry detergent of someone I was talking to” made her feel dizzy, prompted an asthma attack or another migraine. “I Googled ‘fragrance allergy’ and was tested, and it turned out that’s what I had.”
The solution was radical: move house and start over. Belinda explains: “We chose a new house that’s built in a Dutch 1920s style. It’s dry and well insulated, so no cracks to let polluted air in. None of the new houses have chimneys, so no wood fires in winter. There are no farms nearby so no pesticides or cattle dung. The street is car free, so no exhaust fumes. And there’s a park close by, so lots of oxygen and exercise is possible.”
However this was only half the battle, the real challenge was how to fit out and furnish her home without the use of solvents, silicone, formaldehyde, fire retardants or the Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) that are present in most glues, paints, new carpets, furniture and flooring.
“I discovered that glass, stone and steel are safe products to use and I didn’t react to vintage wood, as the solvents have had time to evaporate, so we decided on a vintage style with industrial elements,” says Belinda. And the dark colours? “I become very light sensitive when I have a migraine. Then I went to a friend’s house whose walls were dark grey. I loved it, took my husband to see it, and he was on board, too.” She continues, “I’d read that using 100% black wasn’t a good choice because it would feel dead, so I bought a paint colour chart, took the plunge and decided on anthracite.”
While most of the downstairs was duly painted this inky blue-black, the loo has white tiles, and neon pink is on the cards for the staircase, pending finding “a scent-free version of durable neon bright paint”. Belinda’s bedroom is another shade of very dark blue. It wasn’t a family-wide prescription, though: her youngest has a bright yellow room, and her eldest daughter chose pastels. “My husband is totally in love with the darkness. The kids are OK with it, but the middle one loves it more than the others.”
When it came to choosing a kitchen, though, even a visit to a showroom brought on a migraine. “I spoke to a carpenter about fitting a handmade kitchen, but that would probably involve glue and solvents, too, and a lot of money that we didn’t have. So I searched online. I came across the Vipp kitchen, which is made from steel. It was beautiful, but very expensive. But the steel led me to considering second-hand restaurant kitchen elements, and then I realised that I could mix this with vintage furniture to create a budget-friendly, eco-friendly, non-toxic, scent-free kitchen.”
It’s such diligence and dogged research that ensures Belinda’s home feels like a happy family home, not a super-sanitised interior. It’s fun, too, with many pieces in the open-plan ground floor kitchen/living space being on castors.
“My husband loves things on wheels and I like to move furniture around, so it is a logical combination for us.” It has a touch of the Dutch still life to it, too. Belinda spent hours looking at Marktplaats, the Dutch equivalent of eBay, sourcing the perfect pieces to give her home character.
“The darkness is so very embracing to be in. It immediately felt like a lived-in home, rather than the empty ‘we’re still working on it’ houses that our neighbours on the block had. I love art, I love paintings and I saw the resemblance to 17th-century painters. The dark makes objects stand out so beautifully and I can really enjoy that.”
With indoor air cleaners on 24/7, steel office cabinets in the bedrooms for their clothes, water filters, underfloor heating (no radiators to trap dust), a free-standing bath (no silicone required), and the fridge and dishwasher “aired out in the shed for a month” before installation, Belinda has managed to turn a potentially debilitating illness into a powerful force for aesthetic good.
And with the average home being five times more toxic on the inside than the street outside – according to a 2012 European study – it might just give the rest of us pause for thought, too.
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