A Lady's New Chapter: Downsizing to a Practical and Elegant Home

A woman decided to change her home, leaving behind her old, spacious house for a more compact and easily maintained solution. The move from her traditional multi-story family home was driven by the need to make her living spaces more efficient and functional for her future needs. She chose a ground-floor apartment with good natural light and a small garden—an ideal setup for her new lifestyle.

Layout Division

The apartment was designed with a clear separation between the living and sleeping areas. The lady wanted to maintain the ability to host friends and family without compromising comfort or privacy. To meet these requirements, the two main areas of the home were distinctly divided.
The living area features an elegant and welcoming space where the living room seamlessly connects with a separate yet open kitchen. This fluid space is enhanced by custom furnishings that add order and aesthetic consistency. The sleeping area, on the other hand, has a more traditional configuration. A hidden panel within a full-height boiserie leads to a small hallway that provides access to the guest bathroom and guest bedroom. The master bedroom, complete with an en-suite bathroom, is concealed behind a large sliding panel, ensuring both flexibility and practicality.

Practicality and Customization

The reduced size of the apartment required tailored design solutions to balance practicality and elegance. Custom furniture became the guiding principle of the project, integrating storage solutions while concealing technical elements.
From the entrance, the home features integrated furniture that guides visitors through a cohesive journey. Shelves and display cabinets hold a lifetime of memories, striking a balance between practicality and personalization. The boiserie separating the living and sleeping areas doubles as a dual-sided unit housing a compact laundry and continues as cabinetry leading to the master bedroom, where it transforms into the bed’s headboard. The bespoke furnishings provided both visual and functional coherence, meeting the needs of an elderly client who desired a practical yet formal and welcoming environment.

The Kitchen

The kitchen was designed to be compact and functional. The large living room unit extends into the kitchen, transforming into a console with spacious shelves, while integrating a refrigerator, storage spaces, and a worktop with a backsplash in Biancone di Asiago—a material chosen for its simplicity and durability.

Materials and Finishes

The apartment’s floors are made of industrial oak solid wood, chosen for its understated elegance. Thresholds between different areas are highlighted by a change in flooring, accentuating the thickness of the walls and the volumes of the furniture blocks. The walls were treated with lime-based finishes, giving a subtle tactile quality that complements the stained and brushed oak paneling. In the bathrooms, mosaics and wood contribute to a composed and refined atmosphere consistent with the rest of the apartment. Here, too, custom solutions optimize the space while maintaining a clean and coherent design language.

Furniture and Decorations

The furnishing process blended new elements with vintage pieces from the 1970s, selected to add character to the spaces. Thoughtful touches of color and the restrained extravagance of cc-tapis rugs created a delicate balance of feminine and formal elements, softening the assertiveness of the fixed furniture design.

This project demonstrates how a traditional space can be transformed to meet contemporary living needs. Although scaled down from her previous home, the apartment has been optimized to ensure comfort, practicality, and elegance, offering the client a welcoming and efficient space tailored to her needs. The choice of natural materials, custom furnishings, and flexible solutions reflects a design approach that harmonizes tradition with innovation, making this home the perfect setting for the next phase of her life.

• Assignement
  Concept design
  Definitive design
  Execution design
  Construction supervision
• Status
  Built
• Client
  Private
• Budget
  Undisclosed
• Size
  115 m2
• Consultants
  Light Center - lighting consultant
• Contractors
  Anreca case sas- general contractor
  Rollport - custom furnitures
  Grassi Pietre - stone elements
  MB decoration - plasters
  Spinelli A&G Srl - fabrics and curtains
• Suppliers
  Calce del Brenta - finishes
  CC-Tapis - rugs
  Acerbis, Cassina, Studio Intervallo, Zeus - loose furnitures
• Team
  Marta Giulia Micheletti
• Photos
  Francesca Iovene
• Styling
  Sonia Pravato