Jose Luis Romero, Casa decorada "Carmen de los Arrayanes" / Decorated house "Carmen de los Arryanes"

this image as on Google Streetview

The house pictured above, named Carmen de los Arrayanes and located in the Spanish municipality of Paradas, seems unremarkable at first glance. 

However, the interior has a unique allure, with a surprising design and all sorts of decorative elements, which all together are a faithful replica of the famous palace Alhambra in Granada.

this image and the next five courtesy of Serflac,
from his video in the documentation

Life and works

The house is a creation of José Luis Romero (1948-2025), who was born in Paradas and had there a store dealing in fabric and clothing.

He married María del Carmen and the couple got two children. 

The idea of ​​building a replica of the Alhambra developed gradually. 

It all began when Romero inherited a small book from his father, containing all sorts of black-and-white drawings of the Alhambra palace and he often leafed through it with admiration.

However, the decisive factor was his acquisition of the original 1842 edition of the study by Owen Jones and Jules Goury, entitled Plans, Elevations, Sections and Details of the Alhambra. 

It was a purchase for which he had to pay a substantial sum. 

Gradually he came up with the idea of ​​building a replica of the Alhambra in his hometown of Paradas.

To achieve this, he bought a house in the early 1990s, which he demolished. In this way he created a 500 m² plot of land where he in 1993, with the help of craftsmen, began building his dream home.

He had made a variety of drawings of the interior of the house, as he envisioned it as a replica of the Alhambra, and during the period of construction, he visited the Alhambra some 140 times to document the details.

During the twelve years that the construction would take, he focused all his energy on this project and did not go on vacation.

More than a hundred different silicone molds were used for the plasterwork, which Romero made himself in a small workshop on the construction site. Some of these molds were as long as three meters.

Approximately 125,000 tiles cover the baseboards, ceilings and hallways.

An impressive element of the building is the octagonal tower, with an opening at the top to the outside air, as shown below. This opening can be opened and closed.

There is also a courtyard framed by semicircular arches, as shown in the image below. 

This courtyard houses a swimming pool surrounded by fountains.

Once the construction was completed, José Luis Romero and his family moved into the house.

In 2013 it was opened to visitors, who are welcome, especially on Saturdays, by appointment.

Romero died in 2025, and his wife, Maria del Carmen, and her son, José Romero Muño, currently live in the house.

Documentation

* Article (June 2025) by Lucia Lorenzo in newspaper Turium

* Article (July 2025) by Ezequiel García Barreda in newspaper Lavosdelsur, with illustrations

* Article (Februari 2023) on Instagram, with illustrations

* Entry on Tripadvisor, with a variety of photos

Video

* Video (2022) by Serflac, the scenes of the decorated house start at 03.56

* Another video (November 2025, 3.23,  subtitled in English) on Facebook

Jose Luis Romero

La Casa Carmen de los Arrayanes

8 Calla Larga, 41610 Paradas, Sevilla, Spain

visitors welcome on appointment

 

Francisco Palma Jimenez, Casa decorada con conchas / House decorated with shells

all pictures in this post are screenprints from the
video in the documentation 

The shell-decorated house in this post is located in Albuñuelas, a small village of around 800 inhabitants (2024) in the province of Granada, situated near the coast in southern Spain. 

These decorations were created by Francisco Palma Jimenez. born in 1933.

Life and works

The village's economy is primarily focused on citrus fruit cultivation, and young Francisco quickly became involved with the locals working in this branch of agriculture. 

As a result, his time at school was limited to just a few months, and he had to learn to read and write largely on his own.

Francisco married a neighbour girl, and the couple would have three children. 

He was an enterprising man and built his own house on a plot of land next to his parents' house. 

That turned into a project that took about 32 years. He worked on the construction when he wasn't working seasonally, successively during the olive harvest, the tomato season, and the grape harvest, for which he went to France.

But the project's duration was also influenced by his intention to decorate the house with shells, both inside and out. 

He searched for them on the nearby beaches along the Mediterranean Sea, where he collected over two million shells, while he also collectid fossils found around Albuñuelas.

There was, of course, a practical reason for covering the house walls with shells, as it eliminated the need to re-whitewash them every year. 

But more than this practical consideration, there was Francisco's artistic need to decorate his house beautifully.

Like he made his own planters decorated with cement flowers, and he made a collection of various tools and carved stone heads, while thousands of pumpkins adorn the ceilings of various rooms.

Hundreds of objects he made from esparto grass hang from the kitchen ceiling, ranging from a complete donkey to small baskets, saddlebags, coasters, mats, several bull heads, and even bras made from this material. 

On one wall, he has another unusual collection: forty walking sticks made of wild olive wood.

Francisco Palma Jimenez, who was in his early 90s at the time of publication of this article, is a friendly man who is happy to give visitors a tour of the house and garden.

Documentation 

*  Article (2025) by Miguek Angek MolinePalma

*  Article (2015) by Jo Farb Hernandez on the website Spaces Archives, with a variety of pictures

*  Article  on the website of the Town Hall of the municipality of Durcal 

*  Article (September 2006) on the website of newspaper Granada

Video

* Video (2022) by Serflac, the scenes of the shell decorated house starts at 13.20

Francisco Palma Jimenez

House decorated with shells

8 Calle Morales   

Albuñuelas, Granada Province, Spain

visitors welcome

Juan Muñoz Benítez, Casa de las Piedras in Dílar / House of Stones in Dílar

images are screenprints from a video by Serflac on YouTube

In the municipality of Dílar in Andalusia, Spain, there is in the front yard of a residential house a modest art environment named Casa de las Piedras (House of Stones).  

The internet has some articles that refer to this creation, but none of these mentions the name of the one who made it, like there is also no information about the date this art environment came about.

However, the website of SPACES Archive has the name of the one who created this art environment and a series of pictures of the site by Jo Farb Hernandez, but these images are not accompanied by a review.

So, relying on the information mentioned in the documentation, here is a brief description of the various components that shape this art environment. 

The very first picture above shows that the garden is located in front of a house and is separated  from the street by an iron fence. This fence has about twenty stone pillars with a variety of shapes.

 

In the middle of the gate is the entrance to the garden that opens to a path that leads to the entrance of the house.

As the picture above shows, the entrance of the garden is crowned by a large cordovan hat and a guitar, which could be a reference to specific qualities of the site's creator (guitar player and costume lover?)

To the right of the central path is a large stone structure, consisting of a circular stone mosaic on the ground, on which are four stone chairs with butterfly-shaped armrests around a stone column, which is surmounted by a stone bird with outstretched wings.

Behind this structure, at the left and the right, there are two more creations of birds with outspread wings on top of a plinth.

 On the left side of the access path, on an equally circular mosaic base, there is a round, low wall.

The space within this round wall has a number of V-shaped retaining walls, which serve as supports for two columns that support a large round bowl. There are also a number of sculptures of young people who lend a hand in carrying the bowl. As far as can be seen, the bowl is not filled with water.

To complete this short description, below is an image of a porcupine-like character that is part of the decoration at the entrance. The depicted character jumps out of the guitar. On the other side of the entrance, a similar figure emerges from the hat.

Documentation

* Website Nevasport with photos of a bike ride that led past the art environment

* Website Wikiloc with a walk through Dílar, which also leads past the art environment (some photos and a short sketch of the decorations in the garden)

Video

* Video on YouTube by Serflac Andalucia Trip 2022, fragment about the site starts at 12.56

Juan Muñoz Benítez

Casa de las Piedras

Dílar, dept Granada, region Andalucia, Spain

the site can be seen from the street

Jori Tapio Kalliola, Sisustettu sisustus / Decorated interior

this image and the next six are (2021) screenprints from the video
in the documentations, published here in agreement with MSL

Life and works

Jori Tapio Kaliola was born in 1968 in the town of Rauma, which is located in south-west Finland, near the Gulf of Bothnia.

At the age of seventeen, in 1985, he entered the music world as a self-taught singer and musician, performing as a soloist in various groups and bands.

He moved to Helsinki, where he got a job as a park warden. He married and the family had two children.

Life in the big city didn't suit him very much, and when he was in his mid-forties, he moved with his family to Hanko, a small town of about 7,700 inhabitants, located near the Baltic Sea in the south-westernmost tip of Finland.

While renovating his new home there, some of the tree trunks he had used for this purpose, remained. This gave him the idea to make wooden sculptures from those stumps. 

So he not only loved making music, but developped also a passion for making wooden sculptures as a self-taught artist, occasionally at a rate of one a day. He felt at home there, also because this activity allowed him to protest injustice, a treatment that had already touched him emotionally in his youth.

When making sculptures he discovered that in the world of art no one dictates you anything, so if you wamt to create sculptures that cry out against injustice, a theme that occupied him from his youth, nobody can stop you..

The surrounding images show the sculptures that fill his studio in large numbers. They reveal that many of Kalliola's sculptures have a tree trunk as their base. 

Apart from tree trunks Kalliola uses recycled materials in his work, such as old stage walls, cupboard doors and scrap metal. The paint he uses comes from hardware stores.

Taking all this into account, it can be concluded that he is an artist is in the field of outsider art. His studio is so richly filled with sculptures, that it can be considered an art environment in the category of decorated interiors.

His work as an outsider artist was nationally recognized in Finland in 2021 by Maaseudun Sivistysliitto.(MSL), the Rural Education Association in Finland, who chose him as Artist of the Year.

An article on the association's website about this appointment (see documentation below) states that Kalliola wants to use his artwork to denounce the greed and the pursuit of power in the power structures in society, politics, religion and the economy.

The wooden heads of the sculptures cry out, protesting injustice in society.

Kalliola's artwork has been shown in numerous exhibitions in Finland and abroad since 1999. 

It was also featured in Middle of Nowhere. a project discussed earlier in this blog. that focuses primarily on raising awareness of artists in the field of outsider art.

The Middle of Nowhere website notes that in Kalliola's work a tree trunk is transformed into a work of art, that reflects the artist's vision of the tragicomic nature of life. The website says that Kalliola "delights in the carnivalization of life. In his works, the faces of the wooden figures are white as clowns. These characters view the world with wide eyes and open mouths."

Kalliola's creations are also included in the collections of the Finnish Rural Education Association.

And then, as the image below shows, his studio is also richly filled with his creations.

Kalliola in his atelier (2021) in Hanko_
above image by Veli Grano as on the article on the website of MSL
in the documentation, published here in agreement with MSL

In 2023 Kalliola returned to live in his hometown Rauma.

Initially he worked there in a temporary studio, but after some time he had a permanent studio, of which the image below gives an impression.

an impression of Kalliola's atelier in Rauma
this image courtesy of Kalliola

Doucmentation

* Website by Jori Tapio Kalliola, with references to newspaper articles, a photo gallery of his sculptures, photos of his musical activities and information about exhibitions of his creations

* Kalliola on Facebook and Instagram, both with a lot of images

* Article on the website of MSL on the occasion of Kalliola's election as artist of the year, with a photo by Veli Grano of Kalliola standing in his studio amidst his artistic works

Video

* Video (2021, YouTube, 3'52") by the Finnish Rural Education Association

 

Jori Tapio Kalliola

Decorated interior

Rauma. region Satakunta, Finland

can be visited on appointment (jorikalliola@gmail.com)

Sylvain Corentin, Extérieur décoré / Decorated exterior

images are screenprints from the video in the documentation

The image above shows part of a decorated exterior wall of a house in Prades-le-Lez, a commune of about 6,200 inhabitants located north of Montpellier, in the south of France.

These decorations were made by Sylvain Corentin, who was born in Montpellier on November 23, 1962, to a family with a somewhat controlling mother and a father who was a police officer.

As a child, Sylvain had a somewhat difficult time at school, which led him to withdraw into a fantasy world he depicted in drawings.

After his years at school, he went on to higher education, which was a liberating experience for him. 

He enjoyed musical groups and nevertheless managed to earn an art diploma.

After graduating, he worked in education and got married. The couple settled in Prades-le-Lez and had three children.

Corentin left teaching and, following his heart, became an artist.

In that capacity he initially made sketches on paper, but after some time he went in a completely different direction by beginning to investigate what it was like to make three-dimensional creations;

At some point he started focusing on creating all kinds of white tower-like structures, as depicted in the image below.

Sylvain Corentin explained his motivation for this: "I really want these towers to look like ephemeral dwellings. Ultimately, I don't like things that are too rigid. I love this hut-like look. Initially, humans integrated with nature by building ephemeral things, using what nature offered them".

Sylvain Corentin worked for several months at the International Museum of Modest Arts (MIAM) in Sète, which brought him into close contact with outsider art. He also met prominent artists in this field, such as Danielle Jacqui.

From that moment on, his work truly took off. 

He traveled to the United States, where he met a gallery owner in New York who specialized in American artists working in the field of outsider art. 

Since then, his work has been acquired by numerous American collections, and he has participated in exhibitions and art fairs throughout the United States.

His contacts with the world of outsider art most likely also led him to start decorating the outside walls of his house.

In any case, the style in which the decorations are applied to the outside wall of his house is such that a presentation of the decorated exterior in this weblog about outsider art environments seems appropriate,

Documentations

* Website of Sylvain Corentin

* Article (2025) on the weblog Tipeek

* Article  (2020) on the website Artistes de France, Occitanie

* Article (2019) on the website Hérault Tribune

Video

* Video (9'58", 2023) on Facebook

Sylvain Corentin

Decorated exterior

76 rue du Puech-Marty, 

Prades-le-Lez, north of Montpellier, dept Herault, region Occitanie, France

decorations can be seen from the street

Fittie Quarter in Aberdeen, Art environments

all pictures courtesy of Sophie Lepetit
see Documentation

The cottage pictured above is located in a district officialy named Footdee district, but locally known as Fittie Quarter. in the city of Aberdeen, located along the North Sea in Scotland.

It is a district close to the coast, near the entrance to Aberdeen's harbor and it was once known as a place with houses occupied by fishermen, harbour personnel and pilots who guide ships.   

The district was built in the 19th century by the municipality of Aberdeen, which sold the houses around 1870, giving residents more opportunity to customize their homes. 

This happened indeed, many houses were extende upwards, but the character of the district, which only has a few streets, has been preserved and has even developed in a distinctive way, particularly in terms of the houses' decoration.

another decorated house

Today, the relatively small Fittie neighborhood has a unique atmosphere, with its many colorful small houses, some of which are made of wood.

The most striking feature of the neighborhood is that many houses have decorated front gardens or facades, some simply, but in some cases so elaborate that they could be classified as art environments.

Two of these art environments are presented below.

The Blue House

First, the blue house.

On the roof ridge stands a weather vane, and on the right side a large owl. The facade is decorated with various maritime objects, such as a lifebuoy and an anchor, while the two large rectangular images depict ships.

The low wall separating the front garden from the street, is filled with a series of small sculptures depicting various people and birds

And then, both the man in the green sweater and red trousers, situated at the right, and the large seagull in the center foreground are eye-catching creations.

The name of the one who created this art environment, is unknown.

The white house

This last point also applies to the second series of creations. 

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They show a small house with a white facade and a tiled floor between house and street. The design of this white site is somewhat more modest than the blue one.

The front wall of the house is decorated with all sorts of birds, and on the steps leading to the front door a man and a woman are seated, he dressed in green and she in red.

On the threshold of the front door stands a pot of flowers between two small sculptures.

The space between the front door and the street is completely filled with flower pots and on the right side -as seen from the street- it is sheltered by a high wall with all sorts of decorations.   

The low wall between the outdoor area and the street is filled with potted flowers, between which all sorts of small sculptures are on display, that wave to passersby.

The image below gives a good impression of the street where the house is located. 

This same atmosphere is also present in the few other streets in the Fittie neighborhood, which is now classified as a protected cityscape.

.

Documentation

* Article  (October 2018) on Scotland Travel Blog by Susanne Arbucle

* Article  (Augusr 2020) on the website Globe-Trottine

* Article  (November 2025) on the weblog of Sophie Lepetit

Video

* Video (13'33", YouTube,  August 2023) by Brummie in the Highlands.The two art environments in this post are close to each other and appear in the video at 4'50" .

Art environments

Fittie Quarter

Aberdeen, Scotland, United Kingdom

can be seen from the street

Bert van Houten, Kermis attracties in miniatuur / Fairground attractions in miniature

images are screenprints from the video in the docmentation

A collection of miniature creations can be seen as an art environment on a smaller scale, as is the case, for example, with the collection of miniature vehicles that Willem van Genk -from the Netherlands-  had brought together in his home.

The following post addresses a similar situation, albeit one involving a collection of fairground attractions in miniature, handcrafted and assembled by Bert van Houten, also from the Netherlands.

, 

Life and works

Born in the early 1940s, Bert van Houten currently lives in Liempde, a village part of the municipality of Boxtel in the Dutch province of North Brabant. 

At the age of seven he crafted a merry-go-round from a cardboard box and he would carry this interest with him throughout all of his his life.

Currently in his early 80s, he owns a collection of five miniature fairground attractions. 

As the images in this post show, his creations are incredibly realistic and accurate down to the smallest details.

Each of the structures he created required thousands of hours of work, often taking five years to complete. He made every part himself and did everything from memory, working without drawings.

And if something went wrong, he would start again.

Bert van Houten wasn't just fascinated by creating miniature amusement rides, he was also interested in the fair itself.

So for many years he was vice-chairman of the fondation for Kermis Cultuur in Nederland.(Fair Culture in the Netherlands).

With his miniature attractions he was a regular guest at the renowned Dutch fair in Tilnurg, a town in the south of the Netherlands. The fair was the largest in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg (Benelux). 

When Bert van Houten in 2016 approached the age of 75, he announced his intention to retire from the fairground industry.

Van Houten's creations were not only on display at the Tilburg fair, but were also regularly exhibited in nursing homes, often accompanied by gatherings for residents featuring singing and music. 

The residents of these homes found these gatherings a fond memory of times gone by and the appreciation Bert van Houren received was the crowning glory of his work.

Documentation

* Article (October 2022) in newspaper DTV nieuws

* Article ((October 2022) by Omroep Brabant

Video

* Video (YouTube, August 2025,  4'58") by Mediamannen

Bert van Houten

Fairground attractions in miniature

Liempde, Noord-Brabant province, Netherlands