Updating a Nineteenth Century-Fashion Condo in Rome

Maurizio Cascella liked his rental house in Rome a lot that he stayed there for practically 20 years. When he and his accomplice, Lorena Munoz, had their first daughter, Olivia, now 3, he approached his landlord about shopping for the place.

A lot to his dismay, they didn’t strike a deal. “I began on the lookout for a brand new house with the hopes of discovering one thing comparable, radiating stile Umbertino,” Mr. Cascella, 46, wrote in an e mail, referring to the Nineteenth-century Italian architectural type identified for its expressive grandeur.

After a protracted search, he discovered “a compromise that glad me,” he stated — a Nineteenth-century house close to the Roma Termini prepare station that had loads of character, with ornate plaster molding and parquet flooring.

“The factor that struck me concerning the new place was the robust resemblance to the previous home,” he famous.

The compromise? It wasn’t move-in prepared.

When he noticed it, the 1,380-square-foot house was getting used because the workplace of a legislation agency. It had a single lavatory and was cut up into 5 smallish rooms alongside a darkish hall. Luckily, Mr. Cascella, an electronic-music D.J., had met an architect by way of the music pageant circuit who may assist him remodel it. So after shopping for the house in June 2020 for 480,000 euros (about $515,000), he tasked Emanuela Petrucci with turning it right into a enjoyable, hardworking house for a younger household, with out shedding the weather that attracted him within the first place.

Ms. Petrucci appreciated these Nineteenth-century particulars and was intent on preserving them, however she additionally noticed a chance to inject some new life into the house. “We fell in love with the standard Umbertino parts, however the distribution of the house wanted work,” she stated.

To reconfigure the ground plan, she retained the primary two rooms — for the first bed room and a kids’s bed room — however demolished the partitions between the opposite three to create one massive house for the lounge, eating room and kitchen.

That association didn’t require such a protracted hall, so she was ready to make use of the leftover hallway house to construct two bogs — one close to the bedrooms and the opposite accessible from the lounge.

Then the previous lavatory could possibly be eliminated to create space for a small visitor room, for use principally by Mr. Cascella’s mom. “As a result of we’re Italian, our moms all the time come to our homes, and we all the time want a spot for them to remain,” Mr. Petrucci stated with fun.

The unique parquet flooring and plaster ceilings have been left intact, revealing how the dwelling and eating room have been as soon as divided, and {custom} cabinetry constructed by Daniele Morelli was put in to maximise performance.

The partitions within the dwelling and eating room have been wrapped with custom-made, powder-blue shelving to carry Mr. Cascella’s document assortment and stereo tools, and an built-in folding door was added to hide the doorway to the visitor room.

Between the eating space and the kitchen, Ms. Petrucci put in a glass wall that lands immediately on high of the island. Outfitted with a retractable panel above the island and delicate doorways on both aspect, it permits the kitchen to stay open more often than not, although it may be closed off to include cooking smells.

Within the main and youngsters’s bedrooms, Ms. Petrucci added walk-in closets separated from the sleeping areas by arched doorways impressed by the arches of the Roma Termini station. And simply contained in the house’s entrance door, an inverted arch serves as a scoop of a bench.

“It’s a spot to take footwear off, nevertheless it additionally feels a bit like a membership,” she stated.

Fairly than throw away the Brazilian blue marble that lined the previous lavatory, Ms. Petrucci saved it to construct a espresso desk for the lounge and wall-mounted evening stands for the first bed room.

To finish the house, she helped Mr. Cascella choose furnishings and artwork, together with a concrete eating desk from Forma&Cemento; lighting fixtures from Piccola Bottega; and pink ceramic figures by Emiliano Maggi and work by Marco Emmanuele, from Operativa Arte Contemporanea.

“He’s actually an artwork lover,” Ms. Petrucci stated of Mr. Cascella. “So we determined to place these enormous work and little sculptures round the lounge.”

Due to Covid-related delays, the renovation took greater than two years to finish, at a value of about 170,000 euros (or $182,000). Mr. Cascella and Ms. Munoz moved into the house in October 2022, after welcoming their second daughter, Clarissa, whereas development was underway.

“It was a protracted, difficult carpentry job,” Mr. Cascella stated, however the wait was price it. “My daughters appear delighted each time they enter and expertise it.”

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