I'm Zdenka. We are on the Island of Vis in Croatia and right now we are in Villa Z
which is our family house. It's an ancient stone house, 300 years old, which we
renovated two years ago.
My grandma and grandfather and my dad and his brother they lived here.
Ever since I was born I remember coming here for summer. Actually this is the
place where I learned my first steps. Since I was a little kid I was always
thinking about, "how can you get best usage of every space that you have?" And
as things developed I understood that I really liked creating spaces as the
family grew bigger and bigger. I have a sister. She has a family. I have a family
and it's many of us so when we should come here it was not a high standard I
mean it was very, very basic. The designing process took us about a year
but just because I had other things I was working on at the same time. The
construction process was only four months. One month for furnishing and decoration. Less
than have a year from the roof till floor.
Hello and welcome everybody to Villa Z. This is authentic stone house on the
island of Vis in Croatia in the middle of Adriatic Sea. It's 300 years old.
It's our family house that we renovated two years ago. It is part of bigger
complex and our part is this area here. Our entrance was on the terrace and here
we had wine cellar and in this area here there was a donkey and my uncle who
lived in this house it was his donkey and he used that wine cellar to produce
wine. We decided we would make that wine cellar to a living area and so we moved
the main entrance down there and transformed this outer space which was
stone courtyard to outer living space. This area is bigger than the upper
terrace so it works well. Out of this donkey place we made a barbecue area
where you can sit around the fire and make great barbecue.
I can welcome you to the inside of house.
The layout is very simple so I have six by six meters. It's not rectangular it's
a little bit squeezed. I tried it all different possible ideas but in the end
the best one was the simplest one. I think it's very very often that case.
When you put the stairs in the right place you get the right house.
We're in the living area here and kitchen. It was wine cellar here. It was all black. This
is the pillar that I had to make some adjustments. I had to accept it. That was
the toughest decision for me to keep it because I wanted to have completely free
area but if I did destroy it I would have to destroy the slab and it would
take us at least one more month which we didn't have. I said, "okay, let's keep it
and we'll try to make it as good as possible."
We discovered these beautiful old bricks so we cleaned them and reveal them to be
part of the kitchen and this space here it was a water tank. Of course it was a
wall here. Water would come from the terrace and it was collected here but
since now we have normal water supply, local, we don't need it anymore
so we made the bathroom. You see that hole? That was a hole where the water would
come to and now we put the light inside. It was the simplest form of kitchen just
to have it here on this wall. In this wardrobe there is a big water tank for
solar heated water so that's the center for all house and this is form of
renewable energy. So this is original stone wall which we just cleansed it and
put the new mortar inside and you can see those particular stones like 100
years ago. The purpose of this stone was to hold the big wooden beam. That was a
construction for the next floor but now we have a concrete slab so we didn't need it
anymore. Those lights were made by one family
that's working with pottery for many generations and they are located in
northern Croatia. We had to use steel stairs because we just have concrete
here but other slabs are wooden construction so it had to be lightweight.
So we had local craftsmen who was working with steel and we designed those
stairs. It was very interesting part of the building because everything was
furnished they were still working on these stairs so it was the last thing
that was made in this house and my husband and my eldest son were working
on these wooden parts of stairs so it was handmade. I wanted to make those
stairs as open up as possible because we have no windows on this side of wall in
the living area so we just wanted to have some air and light go through.
First floor. This is the area where it used to be just a kitchen, a small room of my
uncle, and here it was a very, very, very tiny bathroom. The only
bathroom in the house, but here you can see the view. This is the bathroom with
the view and the upper one also. I wanted to make it as white and bright as
possible. All house is white and bright except for the stairs which are black
and steel so that makes a good contrast. This was the part of house where it was
my uncle's room. He used to watch TV all day when he would come from the
his vineyard he would lay down. His bed was here and he had a TV there
and I remember it used to be in black-and-white TV and he used to take
sunglasses and I asked him, "Why do you watch TV with sunglasses?" He said, "Now I
have it in color." So this is the room which has direct
access to the upper terrace before it was main entrance.
In summertime you can
sit here. As you can see, we have a little square in here which is quite nice
because there is not much houses around us but there are other terraces which
are quite close so when we use it in this way when you sit here you don't see
other people there. You can just have your own piece of freedom. Because of
this, everything is under conservation we had an issue where to put the outside
air conditioned boxes so we put them behind those grills. You can see this
it's like the walls are never the same thickness and wall is thicker here and then
becomes less thick in this area. We needed this big wardrobe for all the
pillows and everything you know but it's something you need in every rental house.
And this is bonus, extra place, which you will see right now when you go
to the attic and construction of these stairs was quite interesting so we are
in the attic area which is just my height. And this room also has a sea view.
This windows are specifically designed so you can stand here and enjoy
the view.
I like it. I like being here. I enjoy
coming here with our friends and family. Whenever you redesign authentic old
building you will always encounter challenges and unexpected situations. You
don't know what is inside of the walls, what is under the layers, so then you
have to decide what you will do with it. You should think, "I will consider", what do you
have at hand, what tools do you have, what tools you know how to use and then
decide how will you work on your house or renovation or whatever. The way you
deal with that reflects on your expenses and the time needed. Just respect what
you have and make it be your starting point.
Don't try to make it more beautiful than it is because it is beautiful already
and just take what you have and show it and then everything else will fall.
Thanks for watching. I hope you enjoyed Villa Z in Vis, Croatia. This is the final
episode of Season 8 of Alternative Living Spaces but fear not we are
working very hard to film Season 9 and it will be ready to be posted before you
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