New house in Malo Vicentino

Upon entering, the eye is immediately caught by a floor that wants to be the star of the house, what do you think ... has it succeeded in its intent?

Bleached oak floor, pickled, stained and varnished. An important wood that through its infinite nuances gives the floor a very accentuated shading and an elegant movement. The type of installation chosen is a Hungarian spine, which accentuates the special effect of this parquet.LAYING WOOD FLOORING

Its main feature is the surface finish: a sanitising varnish that makes the floor impervious to mould and bacterial growth. The choice of this varnish is an added value that gives your home floor a unique practicality!

Parquet is not always just an aesthetic choice, in this case the customers wanted a beautiful and practical floor to live on!

The second element that jumps out at you - for some it may be the first, but I'm biased because I'm in love with this wooden floor - is the kitchen counter in all its majesty.

A monolith in corten-effect porcelain stoneware, a tile in shades of brown that perfectly echoes the texture of this metal. The kitchen top is composed of a single slab worked in the workshop by our craftsmen and the sides have been jointed at 45 degrees, making it look like a single structure.

The hob, which will be installed in the central hole you see in front of me in the photos, is a BORA hob with integrated extraxtor hood: ecological, practical and safe... this type of hob is the future for all kitchens, including yours! The washbasin, for consistency of materials and linearity of the island top, is a single integrated piece made in the same porcelain stoneware finish. A detail not to be overlooked is that the drain cover is also covered in tile.

As I told you before, this is the landlady's kingdom, so I designed each kitchen element after listening to her needs. She has never been a cook, she confided to me, but in view of her impending retirement she has promised herself to devote herself much more to experimenting with recipes and dishes. I remember that on the day of the kitchen installation they were slightly anxious: although the renderings are always more realistic, the moment of truth is the installation!

The back wall is entirely equipped with 270 cm high columns, made to measure and embedded in a plasterboard wall. The first two columns, which you can see in the photos starting from the left, are used as a pantry and are internally composed of shelves that will be hidden by white matt lacquered doors. 

At the centre of the structure we have designed an open compartment, enclosed by very convenient recessed doors, which houses a second work area to support the island where the customer can place small electrical appliances. Covered with the same metal-effect stoneware,  leaves space for a band that recalls the dark oak wood used in the front of the counter; a bronzed glass shelf divides the two materials.

Finally, there are two tall units that house the kitchenaid: oven and microwave on one side, 75 cm fridge and freezer on the other.

The choice of lacquer is an important step when deciding how your kitchen will be made, the colour and effect will in fact characterise many other choices which I assure you are closely linked.

In this case the customers have opted for a neutral and elegant colour, a white mandarla in a matt finish. The lacquering of our kitchens is applied in 4 coats on a polyester paint base.

We have taken care of the lighting down to the smallest detail, providing vertical LED bars inside the tall units and a horizontal LED bar that crosses the width and illuminates the worktop of the open compartment. The island's base units will also have a drawer, the central one acting as a cutlery tray, designed to have a LED with an opening sensor.

The clients sought harmony and continuity in the materials used to finish their home, thus esèpusing our philosophy of materials coherence: the metal-effect stoneware we saw in the kitchen was also used to cover the stoneware staircase. 

The large slabs used to cover this load-bearing structure have been cut and joined at 45-degrees, joining the riser and trad to create a single monolith, an effect that we also saw for the kitchen countertop. This type of step is practical and easy to keep clean and has a strong visual impact.

For the wall defining the stairway, we chose a decored raw lime finish, a covering that surprised our clients in a positive way. A process performed by one of our craftsmen that makes every wall, and therefore every home, an irreplicable work of art.

The design of the bathroomt in the living area includes a Hungarian herringbone floor, which was chosen for the entire home and also enters the first part of this bathroom. The oak floor embellishes the washbasin area and continues vertically, where it decorates the wall which is completely covered with the same herringbone flooring. This is the perfect backdrop for the mobile composition which is installed together with a mirror and Murano blown glass wall lights.

In the more technical area of the bathroom, where the shower and sanitary fittings are located, I decided to create a plaster-effect porcelain stoneware carpet that also extends in height, thus recreating a sort of box effect that encloses the part most exposed to water.

The customers opted for brushed stainless steel taps, which we installed in the shower with the shower head solution. These designer mixers have a slightly unusual shape and a matt white finish chosen for the details of the hose, which matches the finish of the cabinet and the shower tray, both made of white corian.

This is a bathroom with a modern finish and very clean colours in which the wall covered in wood laid on tap is the protagonist. The very material effect contrasts with the paint chosen in a very intense colour, in shades of blue, which makes the whole environment much more lively.

In the master bathroom, porcelain stoneware is used for both floors and walls in the 80×80 cm size, and a very textured stone effect has been chosen, with a slightly rippled surface that simulates a split slate. The colours we have chosen are warm colours in shades of beige and brown which follow one another in alternating bands to create a play of contrasts. The bathroom furniture was chosen by the customers with a wooden finish, a brushed oak, which warms up the room even more and makes it cosy and comfortable. Also in this bathroom, brushed steel is the material of choice for the taps.

I'd like to explain the special feature of the Corian shower tray we installed in this bathroom: installed flush with the floor, it has an internal border that creates a slight step that allows us to intervene if the shower tray should fill up, for example if the drain becomes clogged. This solution was a specific request made by the customer: since the shower tray is installed flush with the floor, he did not want to run the risk of flooding the bathroom, and this type of shower tray gives extra security.

The lighting, both in the master bathroom and in the guest bathroom, was not integrated into the mirror because the clients fell in love with designer lamps that we matched to the bathroom finishes and installed on the wall.

The outdoor paving was an interesting project full of challenges that led me to combine natural and precious materials.

We chose two main players to pave these outdoor spaces: porphyry and Prun stone, the first for its practicality and the second for its beauty.
In the driveway area, the client needed a resistant material that would not cause problems for cars and motorbikes and that would guarantee durability over time.
 

For the pedestrian area and the patio, which we designed for summer dinners with friends, I proposed our local stone, the beautiful Prun stone. Even the size and type of laying was not left to chance: 50x100 cm slabs which our installers laid in a staggered pattern, a choice I suggested to the clients to give movement and dynamism to their outdoor floor.

A small parenthesis on the staircase is a must: built using this natural, local material makes the outdoor staircase very elegant. To bring out the nuances and special features of this stone, we installed square spotlights to illuminate the evenings.

I would like to thank this exquisite couple who trusted and relied on me to design their new home.

Thank you for reading this article realisation! I hope it has given you some interesting ideas for finishing your home. If you have any doubts, please write to me below using the comments box. If you would like to make an appointment to design your new home, we will be happy to help you make an informed choice of materials.

Keep in mind that we are a small company, a team of interior designers. We like to find the right solutions by designing made-to-measure and preferring Made in Italy to everything else, so it is difficult for us to use cheap products because we provide a series of services that are "included in the price", including consultancy, design and inspections.

This is because we have to give the right assistance to jobs and customers. For this reason, the areas where we operate to take care of the whole house are limited to Vicenza, Verona and Padua. If 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, wall tiles, bathrooms and kitchens: