Tuscan Living
Breathing Life into Brick & Stone
Rural Restoration Management and Curated Interiors in Tuscany
Tuscan Living
Breathing Life into Brick & Stone
Thinking of Buying or Own a Property in Tuscany?
Tuscan Living
Breathing Life into Brick & Stone
Sourcing Materials and Artisans for your Project
Property Restoration Management
Tuscan Living provides a complete bilingual service in Italian-English for rural property restoration and curated Interiors in Tuscany. We’re not real estate agents, architects or interior designers, but we collaborate with them and can put together and manage a team to specifically meet your needs. We’ll keep you up to date and make sure that things get done. Using the best artisans and decorators, carpenters and cabinet makers combined with our local knowledge for product sourcing, together we can help you realise your dream.
And of course we get down to the nitty gritty too; helping with the permissions and paperwork, translations, recommending qualified electricians, plumbers, landscape gardeners and various other tradespeople you can rely on and trust. We know that it’s the nuts and bolts that hold things together.
If you'd like to discuss what we can do to help you, drop us a line or book a call.
Space Planning
A fundamental part of a restoration project, space planning is often overlooked. It's not always easy to see through a raw and rough space to the best position and layout of rooms, creating a natural flow for a house or simply understanding the structural limitations of a building. We can help give you a vision, putting together functional and beautiful rooms to suit your lifestyle. From here it's simpler to estimate costs and make a realistic budget.
Whether it be a single room or an entire house, space planning is a valuable investment. A well planned project is easier to execute, especially from a distance, saving time and money and stress.
Curated Interiors
Italy is renowned for its creativity & design, spanning from Roman artefacts to 18th century antiques, mid century modern to architectural salvage. We have a tight network of contacts and have access to an extensive and varied inventory. Tuscany is rich in natural resources and wonderful craftsmen, whose skills have been passed down through generations. They take enormous pride in the smallest detail and are very able to work to designs or create and build bespoke pieces from the same local materials that have been used for thousands of years: marble, travertine, terracotta and wood. These are all still used today and are not only in harmony with their surroundings but surprisingly adaptable to reinventing themselves for modern day use.
We believe that interiors are a reflection of their owners, but should also tell a story. We love to repurpose pieces, that remind us of its origins and what better way to do than with a few 'found pieces'.
So whether you favour fine antiques, Italian 20th century design or rustic chic, we know just the place to go.
What we offer
Here's what we can do for you...
Project management
Space Planning
Commissioning local craftsmen
Competitive estimates
Sourcing materials
Deliveries and installations
Translations
Property Finder
About us
Tuscan Living is an Italian-based company, built on over twenty years of experience in Tuscany property market, based just outside of Siena.
We specialize in guiding foreign property owners in the restoration and interior design of rural properties; an important and intricate collaboration of trust and understanding of your needs to create beautiful and functional homes.
Working with a team of carefully selected associates, each chosen for their particular skills and experience, Tuscan Living offers a comprehensive service: from project managing and refurbishing to sourcing materials, interior and exterior design.
Susan Pennington ‘British by birth, mid Atlantic by nature and Italian by adoption’.
A fateful trip to Tuscany led Susan astray, leaving a successful career as a specialist for a British Auction House in New York City. She found herself on an iconic estate a stones throw from Siena, and through a series of unforeseen events the planned four months turned into a longer and more involved project that anticipated... the development and management of the restoration of a hamlet for rural hospitality. This led to requests to help others co-ordinate the restoration and decoration of old rural buildings for private dwellings and the birth of Tuscan Living.
Susan’s knowledge and passion for antiques and decorative arts has also led her to work with dealers and designers from across the globe, helping them to curate collections of Italian furniture and decorative arts for their clients both at home and abroad, as well as hosting small, select bespoke groups for Tuscan lifestyle tours.
Some of our projects
For many, walking into an abandoned building is overwhelming. Flooded by the sensation of the space you wanted, you don’t know just what to do, where to start. For us, an empty shell is exactly what we relish: a canvas on which to envision the possibilities to create into a home. We also enjoy the second, more detailed phase of decorating; helping to collect and place pieces that bring a space to life.
Click on the image to learn more
BEFORE: This isolated farmhouse, one of many on a large estate, had been left abandoned for over 40 years. It needed total restoration from top to bottom. Here is one of the bedrooms in the phase of restoration installing the floor beams. The room below became the kitchen.
AFTER: Having put on a new roof, installed support beams, we choose handmade terracotta tiles, a lime plaster that allows the walls to breathe… and then had fun decorating!
BEFORE: Two derelict agricultural buildings were restored and the covered chicken run between the two was converted into an open plan living room-kitchen to join both buildings. As the back wall was supported by earth, we used a special cork insulation to damp proof. Here we have just laid the terracotta floor.
AFTER: As the building had no preexisting windows so we weren’t restricted by size and were able to install large sliding door, creating a light and airy room with wonderful views across the Tuscan countryside, something rare to find.
BEFORE: Traditionally the lower ground floor of a Tuscan farmhouse was home to the animals, who also heating the level above. This house was no exception. Build on a rocky outcrop, we found when cutting away what we thought was a build-up ledge, a large rock, which presented us with a problem as it took up quite a sizable chunk of the room. Scroll forward to see our solution.
AFTER: We removed the plaster to reveal a beautiful local stone, we levelled as much as we could to create a hearth for a fireplace. As the fireplace was to go in the corner and the stone was irregular we decided to go with a more minimal look with a very simple hood. The stone not only provides the base for the fireplace but is also a lovely place to perch and chat.
BEFORE: From a previous restoration, this covered eating area had been created between two buildings, with a large sliding door on each side, on one opening into a covered courtyard and the other a view over the garden. The space was large and unwelcoming with little atmosphere. There were a series of smaller living areas, no single place for all to gather so we thought this would be better used as a living area.
AFTER: We commissioned a local stonemason to create the mantle and surround in total respect to the style of farmhouse fireplaces. We sized and built the chimney breast wide enough to accommodate the flue for the fireplace when in use and an air conditioning unit for the warmer summer months. The owners were delighted with the results!
In this barn conversion, we turned things upside down. The entrance is above onto a balcony that looks down into the living room with the bedrooms on the upper floor. We decided as the ceilings below were low to sacrifice space and leave a two-story open room. Below is the living room and to the side, the kitchen opens out onto a secluded terrace.
An old 17th palazzo in the heart of Florence has been restored and divided into apartments. This one on the first floor which is known as the ‘piano nobile’ had a beautiful frescoed ceiling. We wanted to decorate in full respect of the feature and choose a mix of modern and antique furniture and art to enhance the space.
An old 17th palazzo in the heart of Florence has been restored and divided into apartments. This one on the first floor which is known as the ‘piano nobile’ had a beautiful frescoed ceiling. We wanted to decorate in full respect of the feature and choose a mix of modern and antique furniture and art to enhance the space.
An old 17th palazzo in the heart of Florence has been restored and divided into apartments. This one on the first floor which is known as the ‘piano nobile’ had a beautiful frescoed ceiling. We wanted to decorate in full respect of the feature and choose a mix of modern and antique furniture and art to enhance the space.
Contact Us
We would love to help you out with any question you may have. Feel free to ask us anything and everything!