A farmhouse, brought back together

This masia in Mont-ras had been altered several times before our clients bought it. Moving through the house meant negotiating unexpected steps up and down, with different floor finishes adding to the sense of separate spaces. Our first task was to work out how those rooms could connect more comfortably. That practical work became the foundation for the rest of the project, from the floors and lighting to furniture and textiles made for particular places in the house.

All photos by Pernilla Danielsson @lifestyle_mallorca

Floors: microcement and wood

Resolving the floor levels meant removing the existing finishes and digging down to the ground beneath them. It was a substantial intervention, but it allowed us to reconsider the transitions between rooms together, rather than keep working around changes accumulated over successive renovations.

With the clients, we chose warm-toned microcement for the ground floor and wide oak boards for the two floors above. Downstairs, the continuous surface gives the stonework, arches and vaults more room to register. Upstairs, the oak brings grain and warmth into the rooms - a different experience underfoot, within the same house.

Textiles made for the house

The clients wanted our textiles to become part of the house, which gave us room to work beyond individual pillows. We developed pieces for the built-in sofa and bedrooms, considering the fabric, color and scale of each alongside the room it would occupy.

We worked with the linen in different ways: leaving it unpainted for the built-in sofa and developing a green specifically for the upholstered headboard. The cloth provided a connection between the pieces, while color allowed them to take different directions.

Unpainted linen throws continued through all four bedrooms. Their weave and natural variations gave us texture without adding another color to every room. We’re honored that the clients wanted pieces we made by hand to become things they would keep and pass on - our heirloom pieces becoming theirs.

Playfulness

On the terrace, we gave color a larger surface: a saturated pigmented lime-paste wall, paired with our bolder hand-painted textiles. The color has depth and variation across the plaster, while the fabrics bring other tones into the seating. This part of the house could take a stronger combination, and we enjoyed giving it one.

A child’s room gives us permission to follow ideas we might talk ourselves out of elsewhere. Here, the little casita bed became a starting point for unexpected color combinations and walls worked in pigmented lime paste. We liked bringing that freedom into an old farmhouse: a room could belong to the building and still have a small house inside it. The changing tones of the plaster gave the color enough variation to stay interesting beyond the first impression.

Inside/Outside

There was already a grapevine where we wanted to make the outdoor kitchen. It had been growing there for decades, and we wanted to keep it. So the vine became part of the brief: something to discuss with the kitchen maker, draw around and accommodate as we developed the cabinetry and pergola. We enjoy this part of working with an existing garden. You arrive with plans for how a space might be used, then find something worth adjusting them for.⁠

The clients bought the house without a pool, so this was something we could decide together from the beginning: where it would go, how big it would be and what would surround it. We wanted to avoid the feeling of a new pool dropped into an old garden. The stone around the water became an important part of getting those two things to sit together.

The clients helped us find a reclaimed-stone supplier just twenty minutes away. We could choose the actual pieces and have them cut to size - a much more satisfying prospect than choosing from a small sample and hoping for the best. Looking through stone with different wear, edges and markings gave us something tangible to work with. Around the new pool, those surfaces would bring the years of use that the construction itself couldn’t yet have.

Lighting concept

The house was dark, and earlier renovations had left wiring exposed across the vaults and stonework. Before choosing fixtures, we needed to consider what deserved light and where it should come from. We wanted to see the shape of an arch and the depth of a vaulted ceiling, as well as have enough light to read or sit comfortably in the evening.

That led us to Contain in Mallorca. Their brass and alabaster lights brought something we enjoyed alongside the old architecture: precise shapes and materials with a presence of their own. We introduced wall lights as part of the overall plan, giving the rooms sources of light beyond the hanging fixtures.

The clients responded enthusiastically, and Contain’s pieces became a connection between rooms with very different proportions. In the tall living room, a suspended glass installation gave us another way to work with the volume overhead. Choosing the lighting meant thinking about each piece twice: how it would illuminate the house after dark, and how we would feel about looking at it all day.

A stainless steel kitchen

The clients came to us with two very different ideas for the kitchen: built-in brick and plaster, or stainless steel. The first was easier for us to picture in an old farmhouse. The second made us stop and look again.

We spent time studying steel kitchens, and the idea grew on us. It offered a different relationship with the building - something visibly contemporary alongside architecture that already had plenty of history. This was a decision the clients brought into the project, and one we were glad to explore with them. It changed our own thinking about what could feel at home here.

Bathrooms

We fell hard for the tiles: zellige in one bathroom, Todobarro in the other. Once those choices were made, the rest of the room had something to answer to. Sinks, vanities, mirrors and fittings - we enjoy the back-and-forth of putting them together, especially when a combination surprises us. The tiles were the starting point, but we wanted the whole room to be worth lingering in.

The “BEFORE” photos here: