Brushing up the past: a graceful French home has art at its heart
When Marine Koprivnjak and Victor Chabaud, founders of interior design agency Maison MAVI, bought their home in the south of France in 2020, they wanted to renovate everything themselves in their spare time. 'It was an adventure that lasted longer than expected,' Marine says.
They found the house online. It's a 1920s villa in the centre of a small town the Luberon with countryside all around and Aix-en-Provence just 20 minutes away by car. It has two floors, covers a total of 130sqm, with a patio in front of the house and a simple room layout. 'It's practically the classic Provençal house with the facade painted in warm earth tones, white-framed windows and sage green shutters. It was irresistible,' says Marine. However, having been abandoned for around 20 years, it was run-down, the roof leaked and the small garden looked like a jungle.
Marine, a colourist and graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Marseille, took on the mantle of interior designer for the project, while Victor, a painter, brought her ideas to life. To transform the house, the couple revised the original layout, removing some walls, and converted the old kitchen into their office.
From the outside, everything stayed much as it was. The real surprise comes when you go inside and are plunged into an incredible kaleidoscope of colour.
Marine uses colour to define volumes, following the footsteps of the great technicolour architects she studied, from Barragàn to Bofill. Strokes of green, yellow, burgundy, blue, brown and violet, interspersed with lots of pink, run through the rooms, interrupted here and there by more neutral walls, 'To surprise without disturbing,' says Marine.
She explains that Victor created 50 custom shades of various colours specifically for the house, mixing natural pigments with clay and plaster. All the shades used for the walls and ceilings of the house are natural pigments from Ressource Peintures.
The couple designed the offbeat wall niches in the living room themselves, artfully using colour to outline the recesses. The unique ceramic pieces are by Maison MAVI; the Arcs wall lamps with their scalloped edges are by Muller Van Severen for HAY and the terrazzo floor was designed by Marine in a palette to match the dove-coloured paint on the wall.
The living room also has a central fireplace painted lavender and a modular bookshelf designed by Marine using Montana Furniture; in the foreground HK Living modular sofas and marble-topped Plec coffee table by Antoni Pallejà Office for RS Barcelona. A vase sculpture is one of Victor's own.
The kitchen plays on warm tones of pink, terracotta and beige, which contrast with the blue hallway leading to the guest bathroom. Shapes in the kitchen are just as bold and interesting – from a chunky Mingle table by Ferm Living to the simple curves of Rey chairs. The modular, Frame kitchen is from Reform, which sits alongside arched alcove shelving.
Just beyond the entrance, the staircase leading to the bedrooms is the original one, repainted with a sage green handrail and burgundy steps; a curved ceramic light-fitting by Pani Jurek mimics the arched entrance it hangs in front of.
In the master bedroom, a Marie Olsson blanket and ColorTherapis cushions adorn the bed. Drawers and cupboards feature contrasting coloured doors
'I thought of a palette of tones that work well together at first glance, and change with the light during different times of the day,' says Marine, mentioning the German artist Josef Albers and his perception of colour. It was 'a true four-handed job, because our tastes have a lot in common. That harmony, in my opinion, is the real requirement for a quality project.' The results speak for themselves.
For information, go to maisonmavi.com
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