Clients and Projects
This house sits on a plot next to the main house and was designed as a bath complex while also serving as guest space.
Layout
This is a single-story house, where an enfilade connects three main areas: a kitchen-living room in the center, a relaxation room (bedroom) on one side, and a bath area with a bathroom, a large shower, changing room, and steam room on the other. The house also features terraces, with one having a dining area and relaxation zone, and the other a dipping pool. Next to the first terrace is a BBQ area. The house also includes a garage.
Finishes
To merge modern interior styling with the ambiance of a Russian home, the designer chose decorative plaster resembling traditional mud plaster for the kitchen-living room and bedroom walls. “The goal was to create the effect of warm walls that you want to touch with your hands. A special relief was needed, but also smoothness, indentations, unevenness, scratches, antiquity. We achieved this only through manual work using finishing putty and sponges. The scratch effect was created with gauze rags,” shares the designer.
The floor is covered in gray stone-look porcelain stoneware, under which they installed a warm floor system. For the bedroom, they chose wood-look porcelain stoneware (the room’s setup and purpose required it).
The shower area, including the bathroom and changing room, is decorated with white square tiles with contrasting grout matching the color of the gray floor porcelain stoneware. Take note of this technique: gray grout is much more practical than white in wet areas, adds graphic quality to the space, and prevents it from becoming monotonous despite the uniform material finish.
The designer also recommends built-in shelf niches for showers: “Any hanging shelves are short-lived, but a built-in’s advantage is its minimalism. If nothing is on the shelf, it blends in with the wall.”
The steam room is, of course, finished in wood (lime). The area with the stove is laid with natural stone (pyroxenite). Ekaterina adds, “A vent in the steam room is essential; it’s often overlooked. Ours is located opposite the door for quick ventilation. The stove is a development by Russian engineers. It’s absolutely safe in terms of burns. The standard-sized benches seemed too narrow to me, so I opted to make the top bench 31.5 inches (80 cm) and the bottom one 63 inches (160 cm). The lower bench has a storage system and is very convenient for children. The construction is floating. The steam room has become brighter, more spacious, with more storage, and this design makes cleaning easier.”
Furniture and Storage
Since this is a guest house, it was not designed for large-scale storage. They equipped a small kitchen area, custom-made from wood. They opted out of upper units and made the lower ones without doors. Sections covered with curtains are intended for the washing and dishwasher machines. There is currently a small refrigerator. To quickly reheat food, there
is a microwave oven.
In the living room area, they reupholstered the sofa, initially covered in fabric. But the designer’s vision was met with distressed leather, so they made that change. Opposite the sofa, there is a real wood stove.
This is not the only furniture renovation. For example, the designer repainted the dining area table, as she could not find a ready-made model of the desired shape and color.
Of course, there are wall hooks for storing outerwear, various bath accessories. In the shower upon entry, there is a cabinet for various bath items.
The bedroom has two dressers. One of them is in retro style. The same style is supported by the chair. The large bed is the central element of the room.
Lighting
The lighting is designed with retro-style pendant lights in the kitchen-living room and bedroom. For additional light in the bedroom, there is a floor lamp, and in the kitchen-living room, a lit stove provides soft warm light. During the day, a large panoramic window-door perfectly illuminates this room. In the shower, there are spot ceiling lights, and in the steam room, there is lighting for the upper bench and overhead light.
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