Floors and bathrooms in Gazzolo D'Arcole, Verona

If I had to describe what it fees like to enter this house, the first word that would come to mind would be: air. The entrance opens onto a large open space, with the living room and dining room ideally separated from the kitchen by a plasterboard wall that houses the three-sided fireplace and a large storage unit. The large windows, high walls, light colours and light furniture allow light to circulate and give a very reassuring sense of spaciousness.

To respect the sense of airiness of the space and the modern design of the house, as well as Jessica and Samuele's desire to have a very practical floor on the ground floor, we opted for a large stone-effect porcelain stoneware floor covering the entire floor.

The stone effect is characterised by a very warm and soft beige shade, the design of the natural stone helps camouflage any dust or crumbs, and the matching grouting of the chosen large 120x120 tiles cancels out any sense of discontinuity between one tile and another. The result is a floor that is extremely easy to clean, very resistant to scratches and knocks, but still very welcoming and pleasing to the eye.

As you enter, you can't help but notice the spectacular cantilevered staircase with its modern glass railing, which allows you to appreciate the beauty of the suspended steps. The internal staircase, like all the elements chosen in this home, is intended to enhance the space and breadth and succeeds in its apparent lightness and transparency.

The structure originates from the base covered in stoneware, using the same tile as the floor. We cut the stoneware at a 45-degree angle, then laminated and grouted it to match colour so that it becomes a single monolith. These inviting steps are then transformed into a light wooden staircase, made with the same parquet flooring as the upper floor and which we will see shortly!

The wooden steps wrap around the metal brackets embedded in the masonry, and play with the transparency of the glass parapet and the solidity of the stone effect monolith.

Before taking the stairs to the upper floor, let's take a look at the living area bathroom, a bathroom dedicated to guests. We enter here with the same stone-effect stoneware as in the living area, which also partly covers the walls of the large shower in the niche. The front wall is covered with large slabs of satin-finish marble-effect stoneware, deep black with a few white veins that have a strong visual impact and break through the shower wall to create a sense of continuity.

The full-height cladding is interrupted in part by a long vertical mirror. The large mirror is placed next to the small bathroom cabinet with wooden drawer, on which lays a modern matt ceramic basin, completed by a chrome wall-mounted tap, matching the thermostatic shower mixers. Having recessed the shower in a niche has allowed us to recover precious space in the bathroom: if we had opted for a corner shower we would not have been able to give all the space for movement in and out of the shower that the couple now enjoys.

For the same need to give lightness to the bathroom we opted for a wall-mounted cabinet and a wall-mounted sanitary ware: floor-standing elements give a greater sense of clutter and can make the cleaning less easy, opting for wall-mounted bathroom furniture elements reclaims space below and mantains a more modern line.

Then we reach the upper floor, where the foot is pampered by a natural, warm oak wood floor with a brushed and varnished finish. The two-layer, medium-width wood planks are laid across the entire floor in a dynamic shiplap pattern. The lively movement of the grain on the planks adds warmth to the room. Even in the photos you can see grains and knots, so it has a very lively and intense look that goes well with the rest of the house.

Wood is often preferred for the most intimate rooms in the house, so in this case, too, the customers specifically asked for parquet for the bedrooms. I don't think this was a random choice: nothing beats the feeling of walking on parquet flooring as soon as you get out of bed and head for the bathroom in the early morning. Wooden flooring, even without underfloor heating, naturally maintains a pleasant warmth that makes every barefoot step in the house relaxing and cosy.

Finally, to conclude our tour, we enter the modern master bathroom in the sleeping area. We immediately notice a small detail that may go unnoticed: the gap between the wooden floor and the stoneware floor has only been made with a small joint, without the insertion of profiles, so as to give absolute continuity to the surface. Passing the hand over the gap is therefore imperceptible and cleaning is necessarily facilitated. These are small details, but they make all the difference over time!

Here we decided to play with stone-effect stoneware tiles in two different colours. In the shower area, we used a darker tile in a material dove-colour. We used this material not only for the walls, but also for the large floor-level shower tray and the shower cover. The pair of wall-hung sanitary fittings is also highlighted by dove-coloured tiles, while the rest of the room is covered with a lighter, warmer stone effect that also covers the top of the large bathroom cabinet.

Resting on a plasterboard wall backlit by LED strips, the unit is composed of two distinct elements: the stoneware-covered top which also goes up the back and the mud-coloured chest of drawers which matches the matt coloured washbasin. The chest of drawers is purposely reduced in size to give Jessica a make-up area (promptly filled with beauty and make-up cases). The large illuminated horizontal mirror makes it easy to get ready together in the morning and end the day together.

First and foremost we would like to thank Jessica and Samuele: thank you for entrusting us with your home, for your trust and for being locked out of the house for almost two hours for these photos!

Thank you for reading this article realisation! I hope you enjoyed it and that it sparked your creativity. If you have any doubts or questions you can write to me below using the comments box. If, on the other hand, you would like to make an appointment to renovate your bathrooms and your home, use the form below. We will be happy to accompany you on this difficult but beautiful journey!

Keep in mind, however, that we are a small company, a team of interior designers. We like to find the right solutions and work with the most beautiful and newest products, preferring the Made in Italy to everything else, so it is difficult for us to use cheap products because we provide a range of services that are "included in the price" including advice, design, inspections ... Also: 

• We can do very few jobs in a year: on average a dozen turnkey jobs;
• We do not have the capacity to do jobs with immense sizes;
• Nor can we move too far from Vicenza-Verona.

This is because we have to provide the right assistance to jobs and customers. That's why I'm already warning you that if you have to do floors thousands of metres long or if the site is far from Vicenza and Verona, the areas where we operate, it's very likely that I'll suggest another colleague. If, on the other hand, you live or will live in these provinces, you can visit us in our shops and we will be happy to design your home together. 

Here are the addresses of our shops specialising in floors, walls, bathrooms and kitchens: