An extra room for Giulia and Camilla: how to turn a one-bedroom house into a two-bedroom house

Paola, a mum, veterinary, and interior design enthusiast, has furnished her 63 sqm Liberty style single-family home for her daughters, making every room flexible, multi-functional and cozy thanks to our transforming solutions.

The project for Giulia and Camilla

Paola’s daughters Giulia and Camilla, respectively 20 and 22 years old, were born and grew up in Brianza. Both girls are studying in Milan: Giulia is attending a Fashion Design course at Istituto Marangoni, while Camilla is majoring in Economics. When they moved to Milan to study, Paola decided to design a new nest for them, a place where the girls could live and study during their university years. Carved out of a Liberty style single-family home is a 63 sqm independent apartment that requires to be re-designed in order to accommodate the two sisters.  

The house is a two-story building: the converted and renovated 35 sqm basement features one bedroom, while the ground floor, the real heart of the apartment, includes the kitchen and the living area in 28 sqm. 

Giulia and Camilla's apartment (Ph. Francesca Salice)

Each girl would prefer her own independent room. 

Thanks to Clei transforming systems, through a few simple movements, the cozy living area turns into the second sleeping area with a double bed. The two main spaces of the property get multiplied, creating an additional room and turning the house into a two-bedroom house.

Bedroom and living room: two faces of the same environment

Our contribution to the project was related to the first floor of the dwelling: a 28 sqm irregularly-shaped space, with a kitchen separated from the living area by a long custom-made worktop.  

Right in the living space, thanks to Clei, Paola was able to create the second sleeping area of the house for Giulia. To achieve this goal, she relied on our Tango, the transforming system with a three seater wide and comfortable sofa integrated with a foldaway double bed with tilting opening. 

Tango (Ph. Francesca Salice)

During the day, this area is the heart of the apartment, where hosting friends, cooking, relaxing on the sofa or watching TV.  With a wave of a hand, by grabbing the handle on the tilting shelf and without moving any item or ornament, the living area turns into the sleeping area.

Tango (Ph. Francesca Salice)

The space is also vertically optimized thanks to a series of spacious closed storage units placed on the transforming furniture Tango, in which it is possible to keep whatever is not needed on a daily basis, such as out-of-season clothing or old university books. Laterally, two narrow and tall wooden shelving act as a bookshelf and as a support surface/bedside table when the system turns into a sleeping area.

From study corner to living space with Girò

In the 28 sqm space on the first floor, Giulia and Camilla work on group projects with their fellow students and prepare for the exams, but also enjoy leisure and social activities. The two girls wouldn't want to give up the opportunity to welcome friends and colleagues, for an happy hour or a dinner together.  

How can these needs be balanced?  How can a sufficiently large home office as well as a dining table fit in such a small space? 

To minimize the clutter created by a traditional dining table, once again the best solution is represented by a transforming system such as Girò. A wall console that is only 35cm deep when closed. 

Girò (Ph. Francesca Salice)

Thanks to its bifold opening system, it can turn into a comfortable 4 seater dining table or a wide study desk when needed.

Girò (Ph. Francesca Salice)

Why choosing flexible solutions

In order to create the required additional space in small-sized homes, such as studio apartments or one-bedroom apartments, there's no need for major renovations. As shown by this project, it is simply a matter of increasing the comfort and functionality of the rooms, re-inventing and optimizing the available space through clever transforming furnishing solutions. 

The rooms’ flexibility of use, allowed by the versatile and multi-functional furniture, represents a concrete and rational answer to the new living and demographic needs of our “liquid” society, in which social relationships rapidly and fluidly change, dissolve and reform. 

This is also an ethical choice, since it preserves buildings with architectural value, making existing spaces more efficient and adaptable to ever-changing lifestyles. 

As in Giulia and Camilla's case, the apartment is currently designed to fit their student life, but, in a few years’ time, it could be adapted to the lifestyle of two young professionals or a couple without any further intervention. In this regard, flexible solutions could also be seen as an investment in the future of your own house.  

Discover how to make your house more functional and spacious with Clei transformable solutions.