Open the kitchen onto the living room and the terrace so the horizon stops being shut inside a single room, and keep the marble that was already there. Casa Al Mar is a renovation with interior design in Benalmádena: 139 m² built, right on the beachfront. The flat, in a 2001 building, came to us compartmentalised — good marble floors, and the sea seen from just one room. The project comes down to that one move and that quieter decision.
The brief and what was there
The flat sits in a 2001 residential building on the beachfront at Benalmádena Costa, and the Spanish cadastre (Catastro) puts it at 139 m² built. We surveyed it on 23 April 2025 and the measured survey showed a plan typical of its period: a closed kitchen, an entrance hall leading off to the rooms, two bedrooms, two bathrooms and two terraces.
The scope was fixed in the progress report of 23 September 2025: concept design, technical design with building permit handling, interior design and furnishings, tendering and contractor comparison, site management and final handover. The works were processed with Benalmádena Town Hall as minor works (obra menor), with a declared six-month programme and 15.6 tonnes of construction waste taken to a licensed tip.
It is the kind of commission we bring together on our renovations page: interior work, a short programme and nearly every decision taken before the first partition comes down. In an interior renovation within a multi-family building, the room for manoeuvre is what it is — you work within the existing perimeter and with the service routes already in place — so the project is won or lost on the layout and in the detail.
Opening the kitchen, keeping the marble
The proposed plan resolves the brief with a single move: the kitchen opens onto the living room and the terrace, with an island and a drinks bar. Light no longer belongs to one room; it belongs to the whole home. The rest of the programme, bedrooms and bathrooms, is organised towards the more sheltered frontages.
Underneath that move sits a serious strip-out. The bill of quantities measured 140 m² of demolition — practically the whole flat. Out went partitions, floor and wall tiling; in went service ceilings and new installations, with an enlarged consumer unit and four data points.
Then the decision no render shows: the marble the flat already had stays. The decision log of 6 October 2025 records the real problem: there were not enough marble pieces left to complete the kitchen floor. Rather than lift the whole floor, that area was resolved with 60×60 grey porcelain laid like a rug. Lifting 139 m² of sound marble would have meant far more work and improved nothing.
Keeping what works is the least photogenic part of a renovation and the part owners are grateful for three years on. In Benalmádena Costa we also have Casa Maravillas.
The interior design, drawn in house
The interior design is ours, document by document: moodboard and style proposals at concept stage, selection of materials and equipment, our own 3D model, a lighting proposal, wall colours, tapware packages, the bathroom vanity unit, the internal layout of every wardrobe and a dimensioned drawing for the blinds.
Two floor materials and two bathroom materials complete the palette. Bottega Caliza porcelain, 80×80, runs inside, out onto the terraces and up the bathroom walls. Paonazzo Biondo goes in the main bathroom, Blue Roma in the second. A travertine-effect porcelain kitchen worktop, white solid-surface basins, and two deliberately different sets of taps: brushed-steel concealed fittings in the main bathroom, surface-mounted gold in the second.
The shower trays are prefabricated, 1,750×800 and 1,680×800 mm — fewer wet trades on site and less margin for error. The wardrobes have white sliding doors and LED-lit interiors, each with its own layout drawing for bedroom 1, bedroom 2 and the entrance. Internal doors are flush and white: two hinged and two sliding.
The 3D model was built in the studio and produced two rounds of renders, in July and August 2025. All four images on this page come from that model. In the same municipality we have worked on Casa Caliza, in Benalmádena Pueblo, and Casa Leala, in Arroyo de la Miel.
Order before the works
The technical design and the interior design were closed in September 2025, and the works were tendered on that complete package. That is no administrative detail. When contractors bid on the same document — chosen materials, detail drawings, dimensions — the comparison is worth something, and nothing shifts halfway through the works because of “unforeseen issues” that were really decisions nobody had made.
The advice we always give, and it held here: choose the floors, the taps and the wardrobes first; demolish afterwards. Do it the other way round and the problems arrive on their own. There are more homes on the website, such as Casa Olivia. If you are working on something similar on the coast, get in touch with the studio and we will go through it with the drawings in front of us.
Gallery
Project data
- Typology: Full renovation with interior design · flat in a multi-family residential building (processed as minor works)
- Use: Residential · home
- Location: Beachfront · Benalmádena Costa · Málaga
- Architecture studio: Klic Arquitectos · Málaga
- Design year: 2025
- Status: Design stage · studio renders
- Built area: 139 m² built (Catastro, the Spanish cadastre)
- Units: 1 flat
- Programme: Entrance hall, living-dining room, open kitchen with island and drinks bar, two bedrooms, two bathrooms and two terraces, one with sea views
- Client: Private client
- Building contractor: Martín Obras y Gestión S.L. (Málaga)
- Interior design: Klic Arquitectos
- Renders: The studio’s own 3D model and renders (July and August 2025)
- Klic services: Concept design, technical design and building permit handling, interior design and furnishings, project management, tendering and contractor comparison, site management and final handover
- Team: Klicstudio Arquitectura y Diseño SLP — Juan A. Goñi Uriarte (COA Málaga reg. no. 1206) and Ruth Buján Varela (COA Málaga reg. no. 1333)
