How taking a chance on a new life in a new country delivered a décor business for a French woman and former techworker, Anna Bougharbel
Maison Anna B. is a Cork-based design company specialising in luxury textured finishes.
The company was founded by Anna Bougharbel, a French woman, originally from Nantes in the west of France.
As the birthplace of Around the World in 80 Days and father of science fiction, Jules Verne, and once one of France’s major ports, she has brought much of that cosmopolitan flavour to the outskirts of Cork city, where she lives with her partner and their two children.
After 16 years as a project and people manager at Apple computers, she has followed her first love – decoration.
France has a rich decorative arts heritage that is as impressive as its fashion legacy.
There are many different styles to emulate, and all should be delivered with a certain degree of insouciance.
In fashion, it’s about you wearing the clothes, not the other way around, and in décor, the same principle applies.
A busy mother of two, she’s an advocate of lime paint, a range of ecologically sound colours that deliver a soft-focus effect, which can blur irregularities and give depth to a room.
In her principal bedroom, you can see how they play with light, she explains.
“The light changes every few minutes.
"It animates the colour and the space. It becomes a feature; you don’t really need artworks. Your walls come alive. You never get bored with these products. They create a patina.
"Your colour pigment will evolve and become something else. You get an aged look you can’t get with ordinary paint. It gives character to new builds and is very versatile.”
In addition to the paint collection, she has also started to sell microcement finishes and has been sharing her knowledge with her 60,000 or so followers across her Iaorana House and Maison Anna B handles.
This has led to collaborations with Meadows & Byrne and with the Galway-based interior designer Lynn O’Loughlin.
“It was a bit of a bet,“ she says of how she ended up in Cork city.
“I was in my twenties and in a very stable relationship. Something was missing, something exciting in my life. “
She studied English intensely, a subject she had really liked English at school, and got a job with Apple in Cork.
She met her partner in a nightclub, The Secret Garden, and they’ve been lucky enough to build their home on family land at Killeens, which is about halfway between Cork’s suburb Blackrock and Blarney.
She can see the castle from the house.
As a parent to two children, Jake, aged 5, and Mia, aged 2, she wanted a home that looked good but was low maintenance.
Built at the top of a field, it enjoys beautiful sunrises and sunsets thanks to the design by Douglas-based architect Paul Keating of JE Keating and Associates.
“As a non-Irish person, for me, having as much natural light as possible was important,” she explains.
As a result, there is glazing throughout, Velfac for the windows and Rayneers for the sliders.
The four-bedroom property is elegantly proportioned with the living areas on one side of the house, the rendered part.
When she couldn’t find the finishes she wanted, she started searching online and decided to import lime paint and microcement from France, where she had seen them used to great effect.
The accommodation is in the wing that is clad in gold quartzite, a stone chosen via screen during one of the lockdowns.
It was a creamy colour that had weathered and oxidised over time.
“It has to grow on me,” she says, not quite sounding 100 per cent convinced.
But it has succeeded in looking as if the house has been there for years.
Their front door and back door are both on the same side of the house.
Large panes of glass to the front and back of the entrance hall allow you to see through the house and out into the back garden and the surrounding fields.
Like many rural families, she uses the black back door for everyday use and enters the vaulted tri-aspect open plan living room and kitchen via a boot room.
It means they can remove all outerwear before coming into this calm space.
This space extends the depth of the property, has polished concrete floors and a mezzanine area above the kitchen.
It is zoned to accommodate a living area, set around lime-painted shelving. A bioethanol fire brings in a sense of visual warmth on winter nights.
In the middle is a spacious dining area, and beyond that is a kitchen that was designed by Rhatigan & Hick.
Above it is a space she calls “the nook”, a mezzanine area with a bed and a games console, accessed by an oak and steel balustraded staircase, by Mallow-based Tabla Design.
In the guest w.c. and bathrooms, you can see Anna’s micro cement in action. The Coco Milk colour delivers a soft feel, both visually and acoustically, to the washroom.
“It is hand-trowelled and can take four, five or six days to complete, depending on the size of the room,” she explains.
In new builds such as theirs, there can be settling cracks. In some instances, she suggests waiting one or two years before applying it. It has a rough texture, and the effect is also waterproof, so it is ideal in a wet room.
Prices for microcement start from €200 per square metre, depending on the areas to cover. For lime paint and decorative renders, prices start at €85sqm to buy through Maison Anna B’s webshop.
