Stone Stories: Vanessa Alexander
Q: What aspects of European interiors inspired you?
What I take from that European sensibility is authenticity of materials and a limited material palette. Nothing is overly manipulated, bleached, prodded or poked. I want things to feel really elegant and elevated but also liveable and usable – you can have a beautiful home, but if you don’t use it, it doesn’t work. These are sweeping generalisations, but Europeans have people over for dinner, they cook in their kitchens, they let things get patinated because they’re not overly precious. They want to live in their homes, not just have them for show.
Q: Why was Calcetta flooring such a good fit?
We looked at a lot of different materials and this limestone was the perfect one. It has a very soothing palette, pale grey with a warm undertone. It’s light but it’s rich enough, and it has a beautiful soft texture underfoot – we’re always barefoot. In a home with very few materials, texture is important. The chiselled edges feel timeless and give a sense of age, that works perfectly with the palette. We laid it in a more contemporary way – large format, not too much grout – which gives that yin and yang between old and new. With the fossilisation, the texture, the density and weight of it, it gives that idea of wabi-sabi, imperfect perfection.
“In a home with few materials, texture is important. Calcetta, with its chiselled edge, feels timeless and has a sense of age. That yin and yang between old and new.”
Q: Tell us about the indoor/outdoor connection?
The original home had some good bones, but it had been badly remodelled over the years and it had a weird flow. This connection to the outdoors was absolutely paramount to what we did to the house: we raised all of the doors, made all the window openings larger, we brought in more light. The Calcetta floors flow from our kitchen/family room out to our outdoor entertaining space. I loved that Eco Outdoor helped me create a large-format version of it, because I wanted something quite big that could live indoors and outdoors. It was a very specific choice to use the same material to emphasise that flow and blur the lines.
Product Calcetta limestone
Photography Adrian Gaut
