Country Living UK Modern Rustic 14

Creating the content for Modern Rustic always follows a pattern. First, our talented homes editor Ben Kendrick and picture director Patricia Taylor choose the houses. The litmus test is: “Would I want to be there?” If the answer is yes, then it goes into the mix. I would challenge anyone to say no to the one featured on the cover (and page 216) of our 14th edition. The setting, on the coast of Mallorca, is stunning and who wouldn’t love to be lying by that pool high above the ocean? While we try to ensure we include a mix of locations – many are in Europe, some further afield in South Africa, the US or the Antipodes – we always aim to have a good percentage of UK properties, championing…

FORM AND FUNCTION Both practical and modern, the kitchen has been custom-made using concrete and lime plaster. A cradle of exposed ceiling beams, which resemble the skeleton of a whale, has become a fascinating, functional piece of artwork. The large metal display cabinet once lived in a pharmaceutical laboratory INTEREST AND INTRIGUE Beside the kitchen counter, which is faced with enamelled tiles, is a reworked 20th-century table, which came from the old post office. In the adjacent dining room, a large chandelier hosts a constantly changing installation of seasonal foliage, currently eucalyptus and rush PAST AND PRESENT There is an open-air kitchen on the roof, which has a second dining area and a panoramic view of the town’s ancient centre. The pale wooden table in the kitchen was used in the 1940s as a surface…

BACKGROUNDS THROUGHOUT PAINTED IN PORTLAND STONE PALE ABSOLUTE MATT EMULSION (LITTLEGREENE.COM). LINENS, FROM A SELECTION (CONRANSHOP.CO.UK) (CLOTHHOUSE.COM)…

LUSH LIFE Gallery owners Justin Rhodes and Cameron Munro spend their weekends at this house in the conservation village of Misty Cliffs, perched dramatically above the Atlantic Ocean and just 45 minutes from the city. Set on three levels, it has two bedrooms on the ground floor and another tucked into the loft under the A-frame reed-lined ceiling, and is surrounded by a number of secluded terraces. Verdant plants sit beside a vintage Atelier Dunlopillo sofa and footrest A GREEN THOUGHT Boldly painting the plastered walls and much of the ceiling green was one of the few design decisions made when the couple moved in. In the living room nook, the custom window seat with matching cushions is snug in winter and cool in summer. A vintage Falcon chair is juxtaposed with a…

It’s appropriate that Olivia Joseph likes to see her ceramics paired with food, because they have a delicious, almost edible quality in their own right – pastel pinks, greens and caramels, lined up like troughs of Neapolitan ice cream. Or perhaps they remind you of sweet peas, which would be only natural: Olivia takes inspiration from the landscape, so her colours and her shapes have an organic feel. Born in Belgium but now based in London, Olivia was still training in corporate retail management when she learnt the basics of her craft at the day courses run by the creative father-and-daughter team of Chris and Freya Bramble at their Kilburn studios. Two years ago, she quit her desk job (“Best decision of my life!”) and joined the Turning Earth E10 studios…

LIGHT WORK By working with the house’s height, Fanny gave scope to the property by creating new window openings and knocking through between the levels, allowing light to circulate via the new stairwell. The workshop (at the back) has been sectioned off from the long, open-plan living room with glass, allowing more light to pass through and highlighting the centrally positioned wood stove from Jøtul SHINING EXAMPLE To create the floor, a whitewashed concrete slab was poured onto a pebble base. Uncoated, it allows the soil to breathe and avoids moisture retention. The interior walls are clad with poplar planks, a material also used to create inbuilt storage, and both materials have a particularly luminous quality, maximising the available light SUBTLE CONTRASTS A slab of concrete is used as the kitchen worktop, creating an island…