Hey guys, welcome back to GoDownsize
where we talk downsizing, simple living
and we also do amazing house tours!
So this week we're visiting Sven and Silvia
and they are amazing artists - Sven is an
architect, Silvia is a painter and they
have this amazing townhouse it's
actually a former car garage that they
converted into their living slash studio space.
So I really hope you enjoy this little gem!
My name is Silvia, Silvia Cardini, and I'm a painter 
and my partner is Sven Hebeler
and he's an architect and we
decided to come here to stay here and we
rebuild everything for having a big
space for living together with our child
So the point was first to have a big
room with light because for us it's very
important to have a beautiful light
inside and a lot of choices was also about
- our, or my, paintings here
- Yes, the house was build around
the paintings from Silvia
Yeah so when we chose the
colors and to have some open space and a
central place to live together and two
bedroom one to front side one to the backside
- divided from this living place
- it's like the heart of the home in the middle
Yeah exactly!
The house before was
built so here is the ingress then there
a bathroom here long corridor and here a
closed room and we have decide to clean
all these walls and make the heart of the
house with a big room. We cook, we study with our son
And we have a big table
so we can eat with a lot of people
This is the kitchen!
And, you know, the point was to
have everything in just one spaces to have it more practical
so we have all this stuff.
We have two fridges because
this one is too small
Everything is just here here, and we use our dishes or glasses or everything here
It's quite comfortable for cooking here.
The difficultly in this project was
to make custom furnitures because the
room is very closed, very little
So we have to build and design 
all the cabinets so we don't lose space.
Everything is a normal-size, you don't
have anything like smaller appliances -
No, it's normal size and also
with the fires and all the stuff is
you know with the dish machine
everything so there's a normal life you know?
So in this case we decide to have
this wood big wood and for having
just one color and one material because
one of the point of the project was to
have not so much materials and not so
much colors and all so much things
because - for us - if you have too much things this the space is coming small you know?
The colors is giving from the paintings from Siliva.
And here is the history from our family with the older pictures photos
This is a lamp, you know?
You can see the history from our
family in all the pictures.
The sculptures are from Sven and Matteo, too!
This is our bedroom
So this is, you know our closet, 
and Sven also in this case I decide to design
also to the other two with wooden
so is all the stuff of the family you know
Clothes and everything also here we
have paintings and the wall with our life you know
This is the final projects of universities for Sven. 
It's a port in Castilian Adela Biscaia
And this is the other room, it's our child's room
So this is the room with the
child and the bed and also here the
space is not so big but we have I think everything
- yeah how many square meters?
- this is nine square meters
So we decided to have here everything books and
games just in a wall
- We have another... 
- Closet?
- Yes, so with everything inside
We decided to put this as a wooden floor but
it's coming from construction was yes
the construction the yellow panels of
wood to make walls with concrete
This is a ladder form the fire police, 
yeah it's an original one!
This is a little room for friends and here you can see
this beautiful view from the hills of Tuscany
This is a small bathroom but with
everything we decided to have all
concrete and gray and to have bath too - and
I think it's comfortable more
comfortable than just a shower in
particular for child you know it's so
built you can open the part here and
this to put on big furnitures yeah so it
attaches here
But you have to move this library
But it's all open, you can open all this part
So this is downstairs and we decided to
have a big space here all the space is
open as before. We work usually as a
studio is an artist studio and an
architectural studio too
And in the in this first part you know we have too something for for staying with friends
and as a living room
it's another space and so we can drink
something or smoking if we want and
having our time, and while the children
sleeping the night yeah
We had before another kind of door because it was a
wooden door and we have no light here no
so much light and we need that windows
is coming from north is very good for me
but we need also another part of light
yeah so we decided to change the door
It was a car garage, and the cars would go in here. We have the windows here can keep open
in the summer time and we have another
door and it was before with also with
the garages there was just before.
We decided to build just this
And we you know we designed the space, it was important to put every book and everything but
also because the inside 
we have - I have - all my stuff for painting
So this is my supply closet.
It's full! Of course!
Sometime ago I had
a studio in another place and it was a
quite big studio with other artists too
but it's not good for me for working
because I like I really like to work in
the same place where I live
I chose and I try to find this kind of
situation to have studio and home in a
same build and for me is really great
also because here we have two you know
two floors so it's a different kind of
life that you stay here when I when I am
upstairs I am at home and
when I downstairs I'm at studio
It's not completely the same thing, you know?
We have this table you could put out
this one and you have a wall again
because sometimes we have exhibitions or
events here everything is empty for
exhibit our works and also 
sometimes also with friends and you know
all the boxes you could change the position
- And we have wheels, we could move everything here
- You go inside through this door here
Are there any negatives about choosing
to live smaller?
Sometimes perhaps we would
just love to have another room or a
garden or something bigger of course but
I think it's also easier for cooking and
cleaning and everything
And I think it's not bad, no it's not bad
I don't know about you guys but I love how they converted that downstairs workshop that were formerly
used for cars into a studio
that was beautiful, had beautiful light
and they can also use it as a space
tonight to hang out with friends and
they have it separate from the private
area upstairs I love how they took out
all the walls and just open up the space completely
As always I'll leave link in
the description so you can go and check
out this wonderful family on their
websites and see more of their amazing
work I hope you enjoyed it and I'll see
you guys back here next week where we
have another exciting video coming up, bye!
