Deborah Turbeville's 'Casa No Name'

Last Friday I told you I had snapped a few photos of a Mexican home that I promised to share. The house tour appeared in the December 2015 issue of The World of Interiors, in a feature called Destination unknown, lensed by Ricardo Labougle. The house belonged to the late fashion photographer Deborah Turbeville (1932-2013), who lived a nomadic life. She named it Casa No Name. It's located in the historic city San Miguel de Allende, in Guanajuato. When Turbeville bought the house it was in a terrible state, but if you are familiar with her photography it is easy to understand why it fascinated her. A friend of hers, who oversaw the two-year restoration told the workers to 'not ... make too perfect a job of it, for "The señora likes it that way"' (p. 190). There is no one thing that draws me to this house; it's the richness of it that captivates me, the gorgeous blend of patterned textiles, colours, plaster walls, the breathtaking roof terrace . . . this is what they mean when they talk about turning a house into a home.

In 2009, Rizzoli published the book Casa No Name by Turbeville herself. I have seen some of the images from the book and I cannot say it's a book for everyone. Let's just say that it's a different interior design book with a lot of blurry images. Hard-core Turbeville fans will probably love it.

I found a short interview with Turbeville on YouTube, taken at Casa No Name when Toast was shooting their Spring/Summer 2010 lookbook there.

For everyone interested in fashion photography I would recommend the book Deborah Turbeville: The Fashion Pictures. It's also published by Rizzoli and you will find in it the infamous bathhouse photos, which shocked when they appeared in Vogue in 1975.

images by me | credit: The World of Interiors, December 2015, Destination unknown, pp. 182-191 · Ricardo Labougle

A natural kitchen with texture

Texture done right is what comes to mind when I view the image above. Kitchens with open shelving usually have that element of lightness that I like and the decorative scheme in this one, the natural and warm look with earthy ceramics and kitchenware, is ideal. Apart from the moss green units the palette is neutral, meaning that texture is the key to an eye-catching look. Everything works here and the cover of the Chesterfield sofa, hand-woven Hungarian linen, adds that extra textural touch. The shelves and other kitchen units are carved from untreated oak, and wooden crates are used for storage instead of closing the units with doors.

About three months ago I pinned two images of this same kitchen. They looked familiar but I just couldn't place them until recently when I leafed through a stack of magazines to look for a particular house tour. In the February 2015 issue of Elle Decoration UK, there it was, another angle of this kitchen I thought I must have seen before, part of a feature called Revival of a Classic (photographed by Michael Paul). Initially I thought it was perhaps Scandinavian but it belongs to a renovated Edwardian style house by the coast in West Sussex. If you like natural and rustic style this house tour won't disappoint you. The house owner is Alex Legendre, who owns the I Gigi boutique in Brighton.

[Want to see more? The images I pinned show the 'Butler' sink, a vintage find, and the use of wooden crates as storage. For those of you who don't use Pinterest, you can view these images on the website of the Norwegian interior magazine Vakre Hjem & Interiør.]

image by me | credit: Elle Decoration UK, February 2015, p. 88 · Michael Paul