Houzz Tour: Restoring Original Features in a Childhood Home
This renovation has preserved the listed building’s 1930s soul while creating a home that works for a modern family
Marta Moreno spent her childhood in this house in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, which has been listed as an ‘Asset of Cultural Interest’. When she moved in with her own family, she decided to renovate it, because, although it was in good condition, it hadn’t been updated since the 1990s.
The owners’ first step was to contact a trusted builder, but because they wanted to open up the home to the garden, they also needed to work with an architect.
Their builder referred them to architect Annika Schollin (left), who took charge of the renovation. “We took special care to draw up a project that would not cause any issues with Santa Cruz Town Hall, because the house is listed and you can’t just do anything to it,” she explains.
Their builder referred them to architect Annika Schollin (left), who took charge of the renovation. “We took special care to draw up a project that would not cause any issues with Santa Cruz Town Hall, because the house is listed and you can’t just do anything to it,” she explains.
“I grew up in this house and I wanted to save the hydraulic [similar to encaustic] floors, the staircase, all the mouldings and details, and the joinery of the front façade,” Marta says. “I also wanted to open up the ground floor and incorporate a kitchen island, because it’s more modern and we like to have people over.”
Contact a local architect through Houzz today.
Contact a local architect through Houzz today.
The Marta and Annika say they understood each other perfectly. “We had a good connection, and it was a very rewarding project,” Annika says. “We talked at length about materials, what needed to be done and what wasn’t a good idea. In this project, the clients were heavily involved in each step. For example, each piece of furniture was chosen by them.”
“The biggest challenge was the swimming pool, because the houses opposite have patios that are four metres below this home’s patio,” Annika says.
The builder didn’t want to put a swimming pool on the edge of such a steep slope, so a lot of calculations were necessary. They only proceeded once they confirmed that their figures were correct, but then they still had to deal with complaints from neighbours about the noise and dust.
The owners knew what they wanted in the kitchen even before they reached out to the architect. They chose a combination of three models of kitchen from Cesar, which the owner says she particularly liked. Their black iron doors match the steel beams.
The mixture of materials such as cement and iron catch the eye and create an elegant industrial aesthetic.
We asked Annika which parts of the house she chose to restore and why. “Without a doubt, the living room and the staircase,” she says. “The owners wanted to remove the load-bearing wall separating the kitchen and staircase, but I managed to convince them that the kitchen should be cordoned off.”
Annika says it would have been “madness to combine the stairs and kitchen”. In any case, to open up the space “we had to tear down the load-bearing walls and put in metal reinforcements, but we were able to preserve the mouldings [see first photo], which we have illuminated with LED strip lighting: an express request from the clients. It could have gone wrong, and the mouldings could have been damaged, but the end result was fantastic,” she says.
The house has two storeys. As already mentioned, the stairs have hardly been touched. “We cleaned and polished the stone of the steps a little, re-painted the banister and sanded and polished the skirting board,” Annika says.
The couple’s bedroom is a simple space where the intricate floor pattern and colourful and quirky artworks take centre stage. Marta says she likes to “mix colours, elegant rounded shapes and strange or different pieces. One thing that describes me well is that I think decor is everything. If I like something, I integrate it into my home,” she says.
Their bedroom’s en suite features an elegant combination of marble shower cladding, concrete flooring and black shower fittings and trim.
The swimming pool was not the only challenge in the project. Putting concrete around the original hydraulic floor in the house was another. The result can be seen in the photos of the children’s rooms.
“For the children’s bathroom, I bought simple pine wood pieces and painted them by hand in fluorescent colours,” Marta says.
The dining table is a good example of Marta’s eclectic style. She went to a blacksmith and had the structure drawn. She then spoke to a marble mason and asked for three different types, which were cut to size and then assembled.
As for the chairs, she spent a year waiting for some that never arrived, “So I chose nine different ones from an online furniture shop,” she says.
Tell us…
What do you like about this home? Share your thoughts in the Comments.
As for the chairs, she spent a year waiting for some that never arrived, “So I chose nine different ones from an online furniture shop,” she says.
Tell us…
What do you like about this home? Share your thoughts in the Comments.
Who lives here? Dentist Marta Moreno, economist Dreman Piñeiro and their three children aged 9 months and 3 and 5 years old
Location Barrio de los Hotelitos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife on the island of Tenerife, Spain
Property The home is listed as an ‘Asset of Cultural Interest’ and was built in 1932
Size 150 sq m over three floors
Architect Annika Schollin of AS Architects
Photos by Maria Laura Benavente / ©Houzz Spain 2022