Renovating Your Home: Integrated Design with Concrete and Lime
The choice of finishes and coverings is increasingly driven by the search for solutions able to transform spaces into not only aesthetic but also sensory experiences.
In this context, the integration of concrete and lime emerges as a practice where materials with inherently different properties are harmoniously combined to create surfaces with striking visual and tactile appeal. This synergy delivers an alluring balance between aesthetics and functionality, making it particularly suitable for high-end floors and walls in premium or luxury environments.
Thinking of renovation as an integrated interior design project means envisioning each space as part of a unified language, where finishes and surfaces serve as tools of expression. This approach creates a seamless flow, allowing different areas of the home to feel cohesive while retaining their own distinctive identities.
With Ideal Work, this vision can be realized by combining floors and coverings that maintain design consistency without compromising stylistic variety.
Designing the Entryway and Living Area: Lixio®
In integrated design, the entryway serves as a welcoming space, leaving the first impression. Using Lixio®, a reinterpretation of Venetian terrazzo floor, in these areas imbues the environment with a sense of sophistication and prestige. Lixio® pays homage to traditional materials while offering a contemporary finish.
Lixio® can be used in two main ways:
– As flooring for the entryway and living area:
Creating a Lixio® surface ensures aesthetic continuity between these spaces without visual interruptions. Thanks to its uniform structure and custom colour options, this product line allows you to select shades and aggregates that harmonise with the furniture, creating a rich and versatile backdrop.
– As a decorative feature in focal points: Lixio® can also be used in smaller sections, such as behind a dividing bookshelf or around a fireplace. This application provides the living area with a strong visual identity by emphasizing key focal points.
The Kitchen: Microtopping®
While Lixio® adds elegance and detail to the living area, the kitchen is the quintessential functional space, where ease of maintenance and durability are paramount. Microtopping® integrates seamlessly into continuous design, offering joint-free surfaces that simplify cleaning and enhance resistance to wear.
– Seamless surfaces and walls: Microtopping® can be applied to both kitchen floors and walls, including backsplash areas, ensuring a smooth, joint-free surface. Its durability makes it ideal for a kitchen that is visually connected to the rest of the home while meeting high-performance demands.
– Island or peninsula covered in Microtopping®:
In integrated design, the kitchen island can act as a transitional element between the living area and the functional kitchen zone. A Microtopping® finish creates a monolithic effect, unifying the island with the floor and accentuating continuity.
Bathroom and sleeping area: Terrae Calce line
The most private areas of the house, such as the bathroom and bedroom, require materials that promote a relaxing and comfortable environment. Ideal Work’s Terrae line in lime and natural materials is designed precisely for this purpose: with finishes inspired by the colours of the earth, it evokes naturalness and calm, ideal for spaces dedicated to well-being. Here are some options.
1 – Bathroom with Terrae Calce Siena: the warm tones of Terrae Calce Siena help create an enveloping atmosphere in the bathroom. It can be used on the walls, transforming the room into a relaxing environment. This choice allows the wellness area to be integrated with the rest of the house, while still offering a feeling of refuge.
2 – Bedroom with Terrae Calce Matera or Venezia: in the bedroom, choosing a finish like Terrae Calce Matera or Venezia means aiming for a material and velvety quality that enriches the space. The delicate and natural shades of these coverings adapt to seamless walls behind the bed, creating a surface that expresses intimacy and quiet, and at the same time integrates stylistically with the other finishes of the house.
Study and workspaces
In workspaces and home studies, the use of finishes such as Microtopping® and Terrae can help create highly functional environments without sacrificing a distinctive style.
– Microtopping® floor: a Microtopping® flooring provides an elegant continuity that facilitates the transition to the living area with a minimal and professional look.
– Terrae Calce walls: for those looking for a home study that promotes concentration without rigidity, Terrae Calce can be applied to the walls, giving the space a refined atmosphere that communicates harmony and well-being.
Connection between outdoor and indoor spaces
Integrated design is not limited to interiors but includes outdoor spaces, with solutions perfectly suited to outdoor environments, such as paths, terraces or porches. Microtopping® on the floor can also extend without interruptions from the living room to the outside, creating a visual fluidity that eliminates the boundaries between inside and outside.
Sensory experience and atmosphere
The integration of microcement, decorative concrete and lime allows you to create surfaces that go beyond the aesthetic dimension, offering a complete sensory experience. The materiality of Ideal Work products such as Lixio®, Microtopping® and the Terrae line introduces consistencies and tactile variations that enrich the interaction with the space.
– Tactile surfaces and visual effects: concrete offers smooth and minimalist surfaces, while lime brings natural variations, which can range from more opaque and velvety finishes to those that recall aged surfaces, evoking a sense of history and craftsmanship. With Ideal Work products it is possible to use these sensorial characteristics to differentiate the rooms of the house, making each space unique.
– Colour contrasts and textures: Ideal Work’s variety of colours and textures allows you to play with visual contrasts to highlight specific areas. For example, a wall covered in Terrae Calce Siena can act as a backdrop to a relaxation area, while a light grey or anthracite Microtopping® floor creates a continuous and modern effect, emphasising, for example, the work function of a smart working area.
Thanks to its different solutions, Ideal Work offers a holistic vision of a home, in which each material and finish blend together to create a uniform context, with different characteristics depending on the area.
Contact us for more information on our lines or to receive advice on your next project.