Casa Mirante
Project: Casa Mirante
Adress: Rua do Capitão Nobre 125
Architect: Saudade Architects - all foto's Copyright © Saudade Architects
About the project:
This house was built at the beginning of the 20th century like most of the houses in Olhao city centre, it had been renovated in the 80's, with the materials used here at that time : aluminium doors, beige tiles on the floor, false ceilings with spotlights...in short totally denatured!
The project with Saudade was therefore to give it back its old-fashioned look but to bring the comfort we are all used to nowadays, such as heating, bathrooms near the bedrooms or a large kitchen opened on the dining room. The false ceilings were broken and we discovered sublime vaults, the floor tiles were destroyed and we had the wonderful surprise to discover that they had been laid on cement tiles.
The entrance door was still in place, in poor condition but the carpenter completely restored it. All the interior and exterior doors of the house were made of wood on the model of the doors of that time with porcelain handles. All of this quickly brought back to life this house in which nobody had lived for about twenty years. The whole Saudade team got down to work and the terraces were completely insulated and covered with Santa Catarina stone (a kind of terracotta made a few kilometers from Olhao), the well in the patio was renovated and the water is used to water the plants on the terraces, a pond was also created in the patio and it is true that today, summer and winter alike, this is the place in the house where everyone likes to meet.
Then it was necessary to repair some moldings, to have the cement tiles that were damaged made identically, to let the light in by creating wells in the ceilings, to choose the taps and sanitary facilities adapted to the style of the house and the result was up to my expectations.
All that was left to do was to dress it and it is true that I wanted it to be clean and simple, but not too much, because the height of the ceiling made it possible to integrate large suspended ceilings for example. The decoration of this house was done in several stages in order to understand how we were going to live in it. In the Algarve, what is very special is that we live outside, on the terraces and patios most of the time, but when the 3 months of winter (mild but still winter) arrive, it feels like being in a cocoon, warm but the sunlight comes in all the rooms and that is what we particularly appreciate...being able to feel good there all year round! A rare thing in these old houses…