Interior Design — Andalusian Townhouse

The owners — a retired couple from Hamburg, both former architects — bought the townhouse 18 months earlier with the structural work already restored by a local builder. They came to Magnum Reformas asking for the soul of the house back: the original terracotta tiles had been polished to a mirror sheen, the beams had been over-stained dark walnut, and the whitewashed walls had been replaced with a flat plastic-paint white. Our brief: strip the over-restoration, recover hand-pressed terracotta, expose the natural sun-dried beams, return to thick hand-trowelled lime plaster, and dress the result with hand-loomed wool, cream linen and the work of three Andalusian potters.

Technical Specifications

Before: the over-restored interior — terracotta polished to a mirror, dark-stained beams, plastic-paint walls and a single white-leather modular sofa from the previous owners' attempt at modernisation. During: the same room mid-project — beams stripped back to bare sun-dried oak, terracotta tiles re-honed and re-waxed by hand, lime plaster re-applied across the walls in three coats; the architectural surfaces recovered, but no soft goods or decor placed yet. The before-during-after sequence here is the entire argument for thoughtful interior design: the building's bones were always good, they just needed someone to listen to them.

Technical Specifications

We returned the walls to their vernacular state: thick hand-trowelled lime plaster in three coats, finished slightly irregular with subtle troweling shadows, NCS S 0500-N warm white tone. The fireplace alcove is faced in handmade cream zellige (4×8 cm), warm-cream grout joints, hand-laid by a Tetuán-trained zellige specialist. The thick walls themselves are the architecture — deep-set arched windows with generous interior sills become miniature display niches, and the original whitewashed nichos in the living-room wall now hold three handmade earthenware vessels and a single Andalusian ceramic plate.

Technical Specifications

The bedrooms each carry a bespoke 3-bay built-in wardrobe in solid sun-dried Spanish oak, hand-finished to match the ceiling beams, with hand-forged aged-iron hardware from a blacksmith in Ronda. Doors are flat-panelled with simple chamfered edges — no fluting, no glass, no LED — the joinery deliberately quiet so the architecture and ceramics carry the room. Internally, drawers in cream-painted poplar with leather-wrapped pulls. Built in our Mijas joinery workshop, every panel hand-finished before delivery.

Technical Specifications

The master bed is a low-profile cane-and-oak Andalusian platform headboard, dressed in layered hand-loomed linen and wool: cream linen sheets, two cream-linen pillows, two larger pillows in soft taupe, a hand-spun cream wool throw across the foot with a single dusty-rose thread woven in, and three hand-loomed cushions in graduated warm tones. Bedside tables in sun-dried oak carry an alabaster-and-aged-bronze table lamp, a single hand-thrown ceramic carafe with a small drinking glass, and a leather-bound book turned face up. The room is calm, warm and unmistakably Andalusian.

Technical Specifications

The dining table is a reclaimed sun-dried Spanish oak refectory with rough-hewn marks preserved on the underside of the apron, set on six rush-seat cane Mediterranean dining chairs. Place setting: a hand-loomed natural-linen runner, hand-thrown earthenware plates with subtle wax-resist patterns, brushed antique-bronze cutlery from a forge in Toledo, hand-blown drinking glasses with a soft amber tint, and a flat hand-thrown ceramic centerpiece holding fresh olive branches and dried wheat. Above the table, a heavy iron-and-rope pendant on a dimmer scene set warm.

Technical Specifications

Lighting is layered on three planes — heavy iron-and-rope pendants for general light (dimmable), alabaster-and-aged-bronze table lamps at every seating position, and small hand-forged iron candle holders with beeswax pillar candles, lit at sundown. The decor inventory is small but every piece is hand-made: hand-thrown urns from a potter in Úbeda, leather-bound books, two informal clusters of small Spanish-coast oil-painted landscapes from local Málaga galleries. The texture story is cream linen on hand-spun wool on jute, sun-dried oak on terracotta, aged iron on lime plaster — the second-look reveal that gives an Andalusian house its slow gravity.

Technical Specifications

An interior-design commission with Magnum Reformas starts with a free 90-minute consultation at your property or our Marbella showroom. Within 10 working days you receive a concept pack with three mood directions, an indicative palette and a fixed-fee quote covering full design + procurement + on-site styling. For traditional houses like this we add a vernacular surfaces audit: an inspection of original terracotta, beams and lime plaster to identify what should be recovered rather than replaced. We deliver plans, joinery drawings, lighting schedules, FF&E spec sheets and an installation calendar. On handover day the home is fully styled and ready to live in.

Technical Specifications