Anne and Stefan's house is striking and colorful. It is decorated all over with thousands of mosaic tiles. The interior is similarly colorful.
Anne is a primary school teacher, Stefan a special needs teacher. To relax, Anne discovered creating mosaics for herself. This started right after the house was built in 2000. When it was finished and stood there bright blue with pistachio green windows, Anne thought a monochrome house was pretty boring. So she started experimenting with mosaics on the exterior wall of the garage. The experiment succeeded, the small tiles withstood wind and weather. Meanwhile, large parts of the walls on the garage and house are covered with Anne's colorful world of flowers. Everything is homemade, every mosaic tile, every piece, every little stone applied by herself and every motif individually composed. The house resembles a sea of colors on the outside and inside.
Anne doesn't know where the ideas come from. They are suddenly there and then have to come out as quickly as possible. As a picture, as a color, as a mosaic. The house is bursting with color and full of Anne's ideas, yet she is strict in her design: there are no superfluous pieces of furniture in the rooms. In the midst of the colorful world, she maintains a minimalist style; there are no decorative items here. Neither are dishwashers and microwaves, which Anne and Stefan don't need in their two-person household.
Besides the mosaics, there are some Buddha statues in the house. They are an important element for Anne, as they bring peace into her rooms and her life. It is noticeable that the doors and window sills in the house are made of metal. Anne finds the coolness of the material and color a good counterpoint to the colorful walls and mosaics. In fact, except for the ceramics in the bathroom, there is nothing white in the house. All the rooms have a basic color, so the kitchen is mainly dark red, the dining room orange, the living room golden yellow, the study turquoise. Anne often painted over the rooms several times to find her feel-good color for each room.
But one thing is the same in every room: mosaics can be found everywhere, directly on the wall, as a picture or frame. Anne DIY'd the technique herself. Most mosaics are made of tiles. She works inexpensively, gets glass remnants from a glass artist, orders quite normal tiles. She breaks the tiles into mosaic pieces herself, assembles the motifs from the broken tiles, and finally grouts them. Whether she works with tile adhesive or adhesive primer depends on the substrate. Outside, she applies her mosaics directly to the wall. In some places, she even applies a second layer. She inserts glass nuggets, mirror elements, but also bowls, tea light holders, small figurines or ceramic flowers into the mosaics, which gives her mosaics a 3D effect.
Inside, Anne also works on wooden panels, gluing her mosaics as frames around mirrors or as splash guards over the sink. She can simply unscrew the panels when she no longer likes them.
In Anne's house, influences from all over the world come together: Buddhist statues, Indian tapestries, Oriental pointed arches, Moroccan patterns on cushions and carpet. Anne is also drawn to stained glass windows. She has always liked the light effects of stained glass windows, so she created her own stained glass windows for her home. She places her Tiffany-style panes inside in front of the actual window panes. Small nails in the frame help to fix the colorful panes in front of the window pane.
Stefan and Anne live here together with five crested chickens that can run freely in the garden. They also like to sit on Anne's lap and be scratched - pure relaxation for Anne. When she sits in one of her favorite spots in the garden and looks around, she usually comes up with more ideas for the next mosaic.
A film by Bettina von Bonin (editor), Bettina Lichtenauer (camera), Jan Parvu (sound & camera) and Frank Rosam (editor).
00:00 Living in the mosaic house
00:25 House facade
01:56 Hallway
02:22 Kitchen
04:21 Dining area
05:39 Living room
07:00 Study
07:30 Doors
07:47 Anne's bedroom
09:33 Stefan's bedroom
09:53 Bathroom
11:17 Garden
12:05 Garage
14 июл 2024
