For me, creating a home begins with a feeling. First, I think about what I want to experience in this future home. Then that feeling gradually begins to take shape: images appear, the images start telling a story, and the story becomes a whole.
At some point, a set of guiding principles also emerges. They are enormously helpful because building and furnishing a house involves making endless choices. When everything seems possible, it is very easy to lose your way.
For me, creating a home begins with a feeling – and at Los Cantos, that feeling begins with nature.
One of our first principles at Los Cantos was to let nature dictate the interior.
From the moment we bought the finca, we knew that the windows would be unusually large for a house here. Los Cantos is surrounded on all sides by beautiful mountain slopes and olive groves, and we wanted to enjoy those views throughout the day. As a result, every window and door in the house found a new position.
Now, whether we are working in the kitchen or waking up in the morning, we look directly towards the evergreen slopes of Grazalema. Sometimes it feels as though the most important part of our interior design is actually on the other side of the window.
The kitchen we designed ourselves, where the interior and the landscape beyond the windows become one.
Simon and I designed our Spanish-style kitchen ourselves. The large windows frame the views, the dark wooden cabinets bring a sense of calm, and the greenish ceramic tiles carry the colours of the olive groves indoors. The kitchen did not come from a catalogue. It took shape around the way we want to live and cook here. The openness of the mountains flows into the room, and we enjoy our large kitchen every day.
Another important decision was to find a motif that could run throughout the house.
When we bought Los Cantos, the interior walls featured old blue-and-white ceramic tiles with Andalusian and Moroccan influences. Quite early on, the previous owner told us: “If you don’t care for them, I will happily take them with me.”
Sorry, but we cared for them very much. 🙂
The old blue-and-white tile that became the recurring motif throughout Los Cantos.
Unfortunately, we could not save all the original tiles during the demolition work. However, we found ceramic artists in Seville who made reproductions for us, both in the original 20 × 20 cm size and in a larger 30 × 30 cm version.
The same blue-and-white tile now appears behind the wood stove, in the kitchen and bathrooms, and will eventually find its way into the outdoor kitchen too. In some places it takes centre stage; elsewhere it is just a small detail. Yet it is this tile that brings the different rooms together and turns them into one story.
Sometimes a single tile is enough to give even the most practical room a character of its own.
The bedroom area, which used to be the garage, was easier in some ways because I love wallpaper. I came across a collection inspired by Frida Kahlo’s colour palette and by Spain, and immediately fell in love with two designs. From those wallpapers, the colour schemes for the bedrooms and bathrooms began to unfold.
The green found in the bedroom wallpaper continues into the adjoining bathroom.
I knew, however, that I needed some boundaries when it came to colour. That is why, at the very beginning, I turned to graphic designer Madis Põldsaar. Based on my ideas and choices, he created the Los Cantos colour palette: deep blues and greens, together with warm shades of sand and peach. Whenever the number of choices became overwhelming again, it helped enormously to return to that palette.
Now that the big decisions have been made, I am completely immersed in the world of baskets, tableware, rugs and all sorts of small household objects. I am trying to find the right place for everything – somewhere practical, where we will not have to search for it every day.
Guiding principles give a home its framework. But it is the small details, everyday habits and objects gradually finding their place that give a room its soul.
We have also been thinking that next summer Los Cantos might open its doors for a while to people who would like to holiday here and experience rural Andalusian life at their own pace. The plan is still taking shape, but we love the thought that our home might, for a little while, become a holiday retreat for someone else too.
If the idea appeals to you, you are very welcome to let me know already.
Our home is not quite finished yet. Perhaps a home is never truly finished. But one old Andalusian tile seemed to know from the very beginning what kind of story Los Cantos was going to tell.