A complete and colorful renovation for this 100 m2 apartment located in a building of the 6th district of Marseille, which was revealed thanks to strong bias.

Target

Bring back to life this apartment where the charm and assets were hidden by too many disparities, while recreating a common thread.

Course of action

The idea was to highlight the titles of nobility of the place, while revealing the taste of its owner and making the kitchen and living room communicate. Then to furnish it, without using neither blue nor green!

Achievement

The colors have slowly imposed themselves, warm, spicy, as well as noble materials like leather, wood and cement tiles.

In the living room, in order to keep the depth and the effect of space that the old ice wall provided, the designer Axel Chay designed an XXL mirror.

The Art Deco type glass roof between the kitchen and the living room creates an elegant opening through which one can enjoy the view without displaying the technical part of the kitchen. The transition between the spaces is smooth, thanks to a kitchen cabinet that looks like a library visible from the living room, creating an aesthetic link between the two rooms. The furnishings have been reorganized, a dining area created and the circulation optimized, with black as a common thread, in small touches, dialoguing with the quarter-top piano. In the kitchen as well as in the alcove, the ceilings were painted to accentuate the feeling of enclosure and intimacy.

In the entrance, the small windows were revealed. The former powder room, hidden behind its double doors, has been completely redesigned and decorated as a boudoir with a Garden of Eden feel.

The bathroom has been treated as a minimalist water room, where the white zelliges with pearly reflections are an invitation to relaxation. The cement tile floor with palm motifs evokes the Orient and its Oases. A touch of rosy terracotta enhances the complexion as soon as you wake up.

An elegant and subtle renovation.

LE QUARTIER

Préfecture

Around the Hôtel de Préfecture, this district is one of the most lively and commercial.
  • honoraires10 000 € (excl. tax) as a fixed price
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Before …

From a beautiful bourgeois apartment in its juice stopped in time, Caroline made a warm family apartment. She likes comfortable and thoughtful interiors, and he likes to mix styles and eras. The result is an eclectic apartment with obvious character, where colors and inhabitants clash happily.

Target

Modernize the circulation, bring back light and rethink the spaces for a family and friendly life conducive to the reception.

Course of action

Modify the organization of the apartment to bring light into all the rooms, play with the colors to structure the spaces, move the kitchen to make it a real living space.

Achievement

The whole organization of the apartment had to be modified to modernize the circulation, and all the networks rethought. The U-shaped floor plan allows for different exposures of the rooms, and the choice was made to work with one color per room, with the colors varying according to the time of day. The entrance, originally blind, now serves as a small office and library area, lit by a glass opening onto the living room. In enfilade, the kitchen has taken place in the former reception room. The kitchen has become a convivial room, with a dining area. The family bathroom replaces the old kitchen. Deliberately kept white, it is in the cement tiles that the color found its place, bringing the necessary fantasy.

©Sophie Tom & Fabien Sans

En résulte un appartement éclectique au caractère évident !

  • Crédits photosSophie Tom & Fabien Sans
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This duplex apartment in the heart of the Antiquaires district, is representative of a classic 18th century architecture. It is also a real jewel of historical heritage, perfectly preserved, which was waiting to be revitalised with a more contemporary touch. Revamped by the interior designer Chrystel Laporte, it is the result of a bold gamble: to bring a modern touch to an upper middle-class setting and turn it into a welcoming family flat.

Target

Transforming a flat occupied by a couple into a family flat, making the spaces more functional and personalised, creating a large family kitchen, access to the unused terrace, creating a new bathroom upstairs.

Course of action

To preserve the charm while modernizing; to bring lightness despite sometimes, little bit loaded elements; to emphasize what makes the flat unique; to be graphic and surprising by creating contrast.

Achievement

We simplified the existing ornamentation by working with whites and light to enhance it. We renovated the beautiful wood floors, with a more contemporary matt finish. We added more contemporary elements, such as the striated glass on the doors and cement tiles, but still respectful of the style of the architecture. To access the terrace, we designed an arty staircase, in a bright color responding to the immaculate white kitchen. To create contrast, was placed the ultra-contemporary kitchen directly on inlaid parquet, and the light and airy lighting fixtures were chosen to soften the heavy ceiling. We rekindle the terrace with masonry benches, cactus, and white walls, giving to it a nice Mediterranean feel.

A beautiful re-birth!

  • Crédits photosGabrielle Voinot
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Before…

In the heart of Mazargues, the exterior of this apartment was already structured by its shape but never really invested. A challenge in only 50 m2!

Target

The exterior of this apartment, located close to the hills of Marseille, was already structured by its shape but never invested. It consisted of a wooden terrace that covered the entire space, and on the side, an outdoor shower/mini pool to cool off in the summer. It was essential for the clients to protect themselves from the opposite side of the house, to occupy this exterior as a real additional living room. A challenge in only 50m².

Course of action

Vegetate the whole space, but also create real distinct living spaces.

Achievement

The shower/mini pool area has been rethought in the choice of materials, a square blue Onyx mosaic has been put in place, to allow this element visible from the living room, to be an “object” highlighted summer and winter. The low wall separating it from the terrace was widened to provide a comfortable seat on both the shower/mini pool side and the terrace side. Facing this element, a module in waxed concrete and red cedar comes to dress the wall until now unoccupied and is broken up of several elements: air conditioner cover, summer kitchen and large masonry bench. These elements allow the installation of a lounge area, to spend convivial moments from the arrival of the beautiful days.

To protect the terrace from the opposite side, the openwork red cedar and metal screens close the terrace on the hillside without depriving the owners of the green view. The colors of the landscape are also found on the terrace: shades of green/gray for the plants, Ravel pottery in white terracotta, and a planter in earth fiber. Even the choice of furniture (Fermob and Arkimueble) links the different shades of the hills and the sea that is so dear to them.

Finally, a custom-made awning protects the entire length of the terrace and custom-made seat cushions have been designed in nautical fabrics, all made to measure for optimal comfort.

A renovation that smells like summer!

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Mazargues

A real village in the city, it has kept this spirit around its shopping streets.
  • Crédits photosGabrielle Voinot
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Before …

In the heart of the Carré d’Or hides this unsuspected garden level. Left abandoned for a long time and split in two by a wall, it was the result of a long renovation.

Target

To find a ‘real garden’ and to be able to embrace the space in its entirety from the house.

Course of action

Structuring the space into two distinct functional areas: a garden area and a parking area. The two spaces being on two different levels.

Achievement

In the garden area, the existing plants have been deliberately preserved and enhanced. The existing plant palette was already diversified and interesting: apricot tree, laurel, olive tree, medlar tree, almond tree, etc. The beds were simply restructured with perennials and lower plants (agaves, stipa, creeping rosemary, thyme, gaura, etc.) and delimited by corten steel, in order to highlight them. The lighting of these beds has also been designed to give perspective to the garden and verticality to the existing limestone walls. The central space is grassed, hosting a beautiful tree with light and evergreen foliage (false pepper tree). It also allows to reduce the vis-à-vis from the upper floors of the building. All around, a large terrace in exotic wood offers various living spaces: garden furniture, dining area, etc.

The difference in level with the parking space is managed by a wooden step in the extension of the terrace and in the almost total width of the garden. In order not to have a continuous view of the bottom of the garden, we have created a white concrete screen made to measure, with an openwork pattern, reminiscent of those already present on the ironwork in place. This element becomes the masterpiece of this garden.

A true haven of peace in the heart of downtown Marseille!

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Périer – Delibes

An extension of the very chic Carré d'Or, Périer is one of the most sought-after neighborhoods...
  • Crédits photosElodie Wehrlen
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Before …

Renovation of a typical apartment of the 60s. Bright, located on a whole floor at the corner of 2 streets, it originally had 3 bedrooms, a shower room, a bathroom and a kitchen. Bought by a couple, one bedroom was removed to create instead a beautiful living space.

Target

To give character to an apartment that didn’t have much. Favouring a large living space, very luminous, where the various pieces of furniture of the owners, keen on design of the 50s and 60s, will be highlighted. Renovate the whole, in its juice, with short perspectives, and with dark and not very functional rooms of water.

Course of action

Destructure to restructure. Open up the spaces as much as possible, but restructure them by using cross-cutting woodwork, giving onto both the hallway and the living room for example, or onto the hallway and the kitchen. Re-open and lengthen the perspectives, bet on white (the majority of the woodwork) and on pretty materials with soft, subtle tones: light terrazzo for the kitchen, slightly marbled tiles for the shower room, matt white tiles, almost chalky for the large bathroom…

Achievement

Except for the 2 bedrooms and bathrooms, all the partitions have been removed. For the most part, they were replaced by custom-made woodwork. For example, the wall of the corridor was replaced by a large bookcase, located in exactly the same place, but which lets the light pass. A lot of work was done on the parquet floor, which was entirely renovated and completely redone in some rooms where there was none left. The kitchen was enlarged to the maximum, with the same principle of “crossing” furniture giving on the corridor. The two bedrooms were optimized by creating custom dressings at the head of the bed. A very graphic joinery work marks the entrance, and gives a strong personality, in contrast to the rest of the essentially white joinery.

A renovation that gives pride of place to materials and light.

LE QUARTIER

Périer – Delibes

An extension of the very chic Carré d'Or, Périer is one of the most sought-after neighborhoods...
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Before …