Casa Serena

Overview

A young family of five traded a dark Milan apartment for a ground-floor garden flat on Lake Como — and asked us to make it feel like it had always been theirs. The rooms were generous but gloomy, chopped by a decade of partial renovations.

Challenge

Two load-bearing walls, a north-facing garden and a strict condominium meant the plan could barely move. The light had to be borrowed, bounced and staged instead — through plaster tones, mirror-placed joinery and a kitchen that acts as a lantern between garden and salon.

Solution

We stripped five floor finishes back to one oak, washed every wall in warm lime plaster, and built a full-height library wall that hides the structure while holding the family's three thousand books. Crimson lounge chairs carry the only loud colour in the house — the family's chosen exclamation mark.