On the furniture choices…
The house interior walks this fine line between historical and modern—preserving historical details while injecting modernity to suit how we want to live. Whenever you’re designing a space, I love to think about where can I keep something classic and where can I insert the fresh and the modern. The doors are so modern, especially the bi-fold style, so I wanted to insert those historical, very classic details through the materiality and vintage furniture. It’s also why I went with the checkered flooring. Having the front and back of the house bookended in this timeless checkerboard style made sense—a visual nod to the past while also feeling current.
I knew I didn’t want any wood so, I introduced an iron frame sofa with very clean lines from Restoration Hardware. It’s the only new piece that I brought into the space. To complement the sofa, I found a beautiful art deco iron frame coffee table with scrolls on Chairish but it had a glass top. So, I actually asked the vendor to send it without the glass to save on weight for shipping costs. Then I asked our stone fabricator (who cut the marble in my kitchen and bathroom) for any remnants. Oftentimes, stone fabricators who are working in larger kitchens will buy in excess which means they have random size remnants leftover. Thankfully, he had the perfect Calacatta Viola Marble piece to sit atop the iron frame. This is not only an affordable approach but a sustainable one too.
To complete the look, I really wanted these outdoor Mathieu Matégot chairs but the ones I found on 1st Dibs were really too expensive for me. I searched and searched until finally, after digging around online, I found them on eBay! They were white and very rusted, so Victor and I spray-painted them ourselves with a matte black. Then we had cushions made for them using outdoor linen. Voilá!
Lastly, we needed light so I bought an 18th-century pendant light with a beautiful Verde green patina and updated the fixture by running electricity to it. Because it was a square terrace, I wanted the pendant to be centered. So, my clever husband suspended the piece from two airplane cables in an X shape, secured it to the wall with eye hooks, and tightened it with a stress clamp to hold the cable together. Then the lantern was hung by a carabiner so it looks like it’s floating.
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