Interior designers from Böho Studio bring life back to a 16th-century Basque farmhouse full of stories

Those of us who have spent our childhood in a village dream of restoring and reliving the house in which we enjoyed those childhood years, probably because those spaces are full of stories that are hidden inside us and that emerge when we return to them.

Bego and Leire, interior designers at Böho Studio, have been lucky enough to take on one of the most stimulating projects for any interior designer, bringing a village house back to life, in this case, a Basque farmhouse, which has kept many stories inside it since the 16th century. Bego and Leire have imagined these stories and recovered the soul of this farmhouse, respecting to the millimetre all the elements of the original construction, from the handmade wooden floorboards to the beams and pillars carved with care and love by the founders of the farmhouse: “The first time we saw this house we fell in love and we knew it was going to be one of those projects that stay with you over time because of its timeless essence“, the interior designers tell us.

The farmhouse is located in Orozco, a village in Bizkaia with a privileged environment, in an open valley surrounded by mountains and crossed by the rivers Altube and Arnauri, a very quiet place and at the same time well communicated with Bilbao at a distance of only 24 km.

Originally, this house was a rustic space, with subdued lighting and dark hues. The owners were comfortable with the rustic style of the building, but did not want the new design of the interior spaces to be limited to that approach alone. The interior designers’ intervention focused on maintaining the rustic essence of all the spaces but, at the same time, they incorporated elements of different styles to achieve fresher and more contemporary ambiences. They added contemporary furniture, textiles and wallpapers with natural finishes and touches of colour to brighten up the palette of brown tones throughout the house.

Distributed over three floors, the ground floor houses the day area with living room, dining room, kitchen and a small toilet, the first floor has three bedrooms, one of them with dressing room en suite, and the second floor has been converted into a multifunctional area with study, living room and a guest area with bedroom, bathroom and a beautiful attic.

The ground floor, the heart of the house

The ground floor, with access from the main porch and the outdoor terrace and at the same level, was the first intervention of Böho Studio in 2018. This is where the central space of the house is located: a spectacular living-dining room where the unquestionable protagonism is given to the wooden beams and the exposed stone of the exterior wall, centuries-old witnesses of this farmhouse full of history. The interior designers have respected this prominence with a restrained decoration and natural materials. To compensate for this, they have made the most of the adjoining reading corner.

In 2022, the owners of the farmhouse again asked Böho’s interior designers to continue their intervention on the rest of the floors to adapt them to their lifestyle and needs.

First floor, the bedrooms

On the first floor, where there were initially four bedrooms, the interior designers have redesigned the layout and installed three spacious bedrooms. The first one we visited has a canopy bed in the middle of a symphony of wooden beams, under a sloping ceiling that reminds us again of the history of the place and a wallpaper that places us in the contemporaneity of its inhabitants, along with a study and storage area, a relaxation space and an original bookshelf.

In the next bedroom, which we have called blue because of the corner designed next to one of the windows, the wallpaper on the wall that acts as a headboard stands out together with a new symphony of wooden beams that give it character. The calm atmosphere of this space is surprising thanks to such a well-chosen chromatic palette.

Finally, we enter the third bedroom on the floor, which incorporates a large en-suite dressing room with an original wardrobe as the main feature. This is a solid chestnut wardrobe that the owners had and they wanted to keep it and, “as we love to give furniture a second life, we thought it was a great idea to lacquer it in a different colour and to decorate it on the inside“, the interior designers tell us. The rest of the dressing room was made to measure with natural textiles and finished in warm tones following the palette developed in other spaces. In the sleeping area, which, like other bedrooms, includes a relaxation area, the original and beautiful floor lamp that we have fallen in love with quietly reigns in a corner.

The second floor with attic

The second floor, or sobrao as we called it in Castile, was the upper floor under the roof, normally with an attic and few divisions, where, as the name says, what was left over was stored: old furniture, junk of little use, the walnuts just picked in October waiting to be eaten at Christmas, the sausages made during the slaughter and all kinds of boots where the grandmothers treasured their old heirlooms.

The interior designers have taken advantage of this beautiful sobrao to deploy a multipurpose area, with a living room and TV for the little ones, a great study corner with a large work table and a guest room with bathroom to receive friends at any time of the year. All these spaces enjoy the particular atmosphere produced by the centenary attic of this farmhouse full of long and delicious stories for those who know how to listen to them.

Project: Gotxi.
Interior design: Böho Studio.
Begoña Jiménez Landin y Leire Argerey Azpeitia.
Location: Orozco. Bizkaia.
Surface: 400 m2.
Finished: 2022.
Photography: First floor: Erlantz Biderbost.
Rest of the photos: Nerea Moreno.

Böho Studio

Böho Studio was founded by Begoña Jiménez Landin and Leire Argerey Azpeitia, two friends who share ambitions, lifestyles and ways of seeing design.

Böho, short for bohemian, is how they named their studio, like this style that they define in brief as non-conformist, free and unconventional, an alternative lifestyle immersed in the world of art and culture.

Böho Diseño was born with that same free, non-conformist and unique spirit that maintains its essence in its evolution to Böho Studio. A more mature and consolidated studio with a decade of experience that gives security to all clients who decide to entrust their projects to this pair of talented interior designers to whom we predict a great future. Thanks to the enthusiasm and involvement of Bego and Leire, they make their projects as much their own as those of their clients.

Bego and Leire believe in design as a powerful tool that changes people’s lives and we wish them to enjoy this beautiful profession they have chosen and are in love with.

Source: Böho Studio

Project by Böho Studio