Here is a beautiful home belonging to a Sicilian, Carlotta Saporito, located in Sidi Bou Said, a picturesque cliff town in Tunisia. The interior design is a collaborative effort of Carlotta and her mother, and the art direction was done by Nana Spio-Garbrah, Interior stylist at Blueprint Africa.
I first saw the living room on their instagram page, and fell in love instantly. The space had a striking character featuring a very unique coffee table, seating and decor accessories with warm colors and Mediterranean textures. The walls were painted white and had on it some interesting carved wooden masks and a painted portrait of a Mediterranean woman. Looking back now, I can now place my fingers on why I fell in love with the space, it looked invested, personal and quirky. You will come to agree with me when you see the rest of the house. Here is how Nana describes it ;
“This was an off the cuff project. On weekends, I house stalk friends – ask to visit and interrogate them on any home decor I find interesting. On this particular weekend, I asked my very good Sicilian friend if I could do a feature on her place. She lives in the idyllic Sidi Bou Said neighborhood of Tunis, a romantic piling of residences atop of a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean with cobblestone streets that transfer you to another time. Her house is quirky (there is a bathroom in the kitchen for washing up after swims and the living room is upstairs outside the master bedroom) but who likes to live by the rules, right?
She told me that she and her mom designed the dining room table and chairs, but that the realization did not quite match their initial plan. The table was meant to be one plank supported by two legs with an insert in the middle to stabilize the structure. The result was four legs and a lower shelf in the middle which can now be used as a footie.
The coffee table in the upstairs living room is both she and I’s my favorite piece in the house. The frame is old wrought iron, the middle piece is part of an antique wooden door that was polished and covered in metal on one extremity. It was made by a carpenter in Hammamet, the Tunisia equivalent of Miami Beach.
Carlotta explained that she bought the painting featured in our shoot from a French artist, Krystian, who has been living in the middle of the island of Djerba for the past 20 years. She describes his house as a cross between Ali Baba’s cave, a museum of modern art and an Almodovar movie set. Finally she tells me the carved mask, depicting twins comes from a Ghanaian markets (yay!).”
{ Photography by Dalla Sonbol }
The house has a vibrant personality, one you would always remember once you encounter it. Despite what their intentions were for the dining table and chairs, I think they came out pretty well. Their rustic traditional look adds an interesting rich natural texture to the house. The footie is not a bad touch, we all know how we love to place our legs on the lower part of the chair or table, plus its additional storage too. I also love the jeweled wooden storage box with the bag atop. Superb!
