Before & After: With a €512K Reno, a Couple Found Space to Live Separately but Together
Enlisting a little help from their friends, industrial designers Júlia Muñoz and Ferran Lajara created a cozy home in the Catalonian countryside with distinct spaces for their practices.
Enlisting a little help from their friends, industrial designers Júlia Muñoz and Ferran Lajara created a cozy home in the Catalonian countryside with distinct spaces for their practices.
What’s the secret to matrimonial harmony? For Júlia Muñoz and Ferran Lajara, it’s being able to live separately—with their own individual spaces—under one roof.
The couple have been together for five years, and they first lived in an apartment in Barcelona, Spain—but they soon realized the shared-bedroom setup wasn’t working for them. When the Covid pandemic hit and remote work became the norm, the strain only increased. Both are industrial designers, and with work and home suddenly occupying the same space, Júlia decided to rent an apartment a few streets away. The arrangement offered some respite, but it soon became a financial burden. so they began looking beyond the city for more room and a better quality of life.
Before: Exterior
Before: Seeking more room for themselves and their design practices, Júlia Muñoz and Ferran Lajara moved from Barcelona, Spain, to the town of Castellterçol and teamed up with A Space About and Lagranja Design to renovate a three-story town house.
Photo courtesy of Lagranja
After: Exterior
The design team added an extra arched window to both floors to create more symmetry and bring in more daylight. Work on the patio is on hold for the moment, although the owners envision plants that will adapt to the location’s cold winter climate, a pond to attract birds, and a garden that is truly lush—like you are living in nature.
Photo by Richard Gaston
After an extensive search, they found what they were looking for: a three-story town house in Castellterçol, a picturesque village about an hour’s drive north of Barcelona. Dating to the 1930s, it had all the space they wanted, but it was in poor condition.
The couple turned to Lagranja, the Barcelona design studio where Ferran had previously worked, to help transform it into their dream home. Lagranja, in turn, partnered with A Space About, a young studio founded by two former Lagranja designers. With Ferran and Júlia at the helm, the team embarked on a productive, creative, and often emotional renovation journey that would span two years.
Before: Entry
Before: The woodwork throughout the residence was in poor condition, so little could be saved. The owners also wanted their home to have a sophisticated city feel, unlike a traditional country house. Achieving this balance was one of the main challenges for the two design studios that worked on the project.
Photo courtesy of Lagranja
See the full story on Dwell.com: Before & After: With a €512K Reno, a Couple Found Space to Live Separately but Together
