With about 860 square feet at his disposal, interior designer Charly Villain has room to play around. Armed with YouTube tutorials and undiluted optimism, the autodidactic designer is renovating his rented maisonette in the heart of Berlin into an Italo-disco oasis—and sharing what he learns on Instagram.

Though he was born and raised in Berlin, Charly confesses that he’s always been fascinated by Italian design and culture. One of his earliest DIY projects was carving Roman busts out of wax, and his name on Facebook as a teen was “Charly Antonelli.” When he moved out of a shared apartment with friends in early 2024, he finally found the space to explore this passion.

Like many millennials, he scoured magazines, books, and the internet for inspiration as he searched for a style that felt like his own. Now, a year and a half into his journey, his vision is much clearer: He’s graduated from scrolling Pinterest boards to shopping designer showrooms, and from carving wax into custom woodwork.

“I like to do everything myself,” Charly says. He’s careful, but confident, and always happy to try something new, like modding an Ikea dresser or laying down fresh carpet. Whereas some makers swear by the adage “measure twice, cut once,” Charly is keen to rapidly iterate. “I just think about how to do something as fast as possible,” he says. And if he doesn’t like it? “Change it later.”

As a result, Charly’s space is constantly transforming. In the open-concept kitchen, he covered the cabinet faces with powder-blue foils, which pop against the checkerboard cream and oxblood vinyl tiles he laid down on the floor. In the adjacent dining room, Charly started by painting broad brown and white stripes for depth, but he quickly realized that the combination wasn’t for him. Recently, he started fresh and color matched the walls and the curtains to a light beige reminiscent of a few of his favorite things: Florence, palazzo architecture, and the warmth of Italian marble.

Charly traveled to Bassano del Grappa in Italy to buy the ceramic leopards he keeps around his apartment.

Sparing the ceramic leopards from Bassano del Grappa in Italy, Charly’s taste in furniture and decor tends toward white, black, and silver—but he’s certainly not afraid of color. He drenched most of the upper floor in crimson paint—a controversial move, but one that lends a sense of coziness to the lofty living room and humble terrace. Some were less enthused by his choice. “The internet freaked out,” he recalls. “They said: ‘Are you really that aggressive? Do you have anger problems?’ But I really like it!”

For his bedroom, he went with downy white walls and covered the wooden floorboards with new brown carpet (the kind you might expect to find in a French hotel). To tie the space together, he added red accents throughout the room: the curved dresser handle, the top of his nightstands, a standing mirror he built recently, and even the custom curtains his sister tailored for the windows above his bed. Viewed from the edge of the room, the color palette feels balanced—the other hues work with the red accents, not against them.

While Charly avidly shops at secondhand stores and showrooms, he’s also happy to get his hands dirty to find the perfect piece for his home. Hidden amongst the designer pieces by Raymond Loewy, Louis Poulsen, and Pierre Paulin are some of Charly’s own creations. His girlfriend, Sarah Anna Hartmann, an interior designer who founded her own brand Haus of Hart, showed him how easy and stylish custom furniture could be (he has one of her signature wavy shelves on display).

Soon he built an MDF dresser for his bedroom, and a glossy chest of drawers in the dining room. The latter was his first project: He made it from lacquered wooden dowels and an Ikea Malm cabinet. “Yeah, there were a couple problems I could fix next time,” he says, “But I’m super happy with it, and I think it looks really cool!”

The most dramatic change in La Villa Villain wasn’t the walls, the floors, or the furniture. It’s how Charly changed. When he moved into the rental, he started creating and posting interior content, drawing inspiration from Sarah, who’s an expert. The first video he shared of his living room went viral, and in the year and a half since, he’s left his job in financial services to create content full-time, sharing what he’s learned and what he’s built with tens of thousands of fans in Germany and beyond.

Soon, he plans to launch a candle brand, drawing on the wax carvings from his first foray into DIY design. It’s a bold next move, but one he’s keen to take quickly. “Just ask me in a year if I’m still doing this,” he says with a laugh and a grin.

Have you taken on an ambitious Rental Revamp—or do you know someone who has? We want to hear about it! Reach out to edit@dwell.com with photos and a brief description.

More Rental Revamp stories:

How a Creator Found a Flat in London’s Tight Housing Market—and Made It Her Own

A Bavarian Baker Completely Overhauls Her Kitchen in a 300-Year-Old Farmhouse

Project Credits:

Interior Design: Charly Villain / @lavillavillain

Appears In

Rental Revamp: A Berlin Designer Pieces Together His Own Italo-Disco Paradise