Our Story — Villa Qualia

Boris and Perica Šuran in front of Villa Qualia

Boris and Perica Šuran — Srbinjak, Istria

The house in Srbinjak, a small village in central Istria, had been empty for fifteen years. Stone walls intact, roof still holding — but nobody living there any more. A family property standing still, waiting.

In 2017, Perica Šuran and his father Boris decided that was enough. The plan: hire an architect, find a contractor, restore a house. The initial designs came together. Then the architect didn't work out. The contractor didn't work out. Neither did the redesigns.

Rather than start again with someone new, they took the drawings, adjusted them to what they actually wanted, and started doing the work themselves. Boris had a construction background — he knew how materials behaved, what corners cut well and which didn't. He brought Perica in gradually. "We genuinely enjoyed the time we spent working on it together," Perica says. That mattered most.

Perica had never held a screwdriver before the renovation. By the end of year three, he could lay a tile floor, handle basic plumbing, work a grinder, apply lacquer with the patience of someone who'd done it a hundred times. "We touched every screw and every stone in this house," he says. That's not a metaphor.

"I had never worked in design, nor knew how to hold a screwdriver. After three years of this, I could almost open a construction company."

Perica Šuran, Villa Qualia

There were bad patches. Contractors brought in for the more specialised work who didn't do it right and had to come back and do it again. "They cost us our nerves," Perica says plainly. Materials ordered twice. Timelines extended. Plans revisited. Normal renovation chaos — stretched across six years because they refused to rush the parts that mattered.

Six years from first architectural plans to the last coat of lacquer on the terrace. They completed almost everything themselves. Perica can now discuss tile grout percentages, underfloor heating systems and structural wall reinforcement in the same breath. He's still surprised how naturally it came to him.

What remains is Villa Qualia — four bedrooms, a heated pool, an outdoor kitchen facing the Istrian hills, and the stone exterior that was standing in 1892 and will be standing long after. Every wall has a story. The people who spent six years on it will happily tell you, if you ask.