Carla Juliett on how her Cuban background inspires her home

7 October 2023

In Bed With Series

This week, we caught up with Carla Juliett, a Cuban-American photographer living in Portland, to chat more about how her passion for travel and her Cuban roots inspires her creativity and home decor style.

Welcome to Eucalypso's "In Bed With..." series, where we invite you to join us on an exclusive exploration of the creative sanctuaries belonging to our beloved creators, makers, and innovators. Every week, we delve into their personal domains, offering an intimate glimpse into their world. For this instalment, we visit photographer Carla Juliett's Portland apartment that she shares with her husband Frank and their dog Juniper.

Carla Juliett, a Cuban-American lifestyle photographer, has crafted a unique design aesthetic in her Portland apartment, blending modern minimalism with the warmth of her Cuban heritage and touches of Japanese and Scandinavian influences. Her home is a dynamic canvas that evolves with each location she resides in, celebrating a tapestry of styles.

Carla's modern style emphasizes clean lines and openness, allowing room for imagination to flourish. However, it's beautifully interwoven with her Cuban background, seen in warm colors and artisanal touches that offer comfort and familiarity. Adding to the mix is her shared appreciation for Japanese and Scandinavian design with her husband, resulting in a harmonious fusion of sleek minimalism and cozy textures.

What's most captivating about Carla's apartment is her ability to adapt her style to different places, turning each move into an opportunity for design exploration. Her living space is a testament to the beauty of diversity, showcasing how various styles can coexist harmoniously. It's an invitation to discover the transformative power of design and its capacity to tell a multifaceted story.

Tell us about your home & how it inspires you?

I'd say that I've moved around a lot, so I feel that oftentimes the home is a space informing me on how to design or how to live. Right now, we recently downsized, so I'm finding a lot of motivation to spend time outside, especially in the neighborhood that we live in. It's so nice and walkable, and I just love getting outside as much as I possibly can and getting a good time in nature.

In terms of style – I’m into a lot of different things but I find that depending on where we are living, that informs what style I go into with. This house is a pretty modern style, so I am trying to keep it clean and open so there’s a lot of room for imagination. Also the fact that I live with my husband Frank and the fact that we’ve been together for 12 years, that also informs my styles, we are both styled by our Cuban background. We also love Japanese and Scandinavian design – I can go on and on, but having the ability to create a new style every where we move is a really great gift.

What's your favorite feature of your home?

My favorite feature about our bedroom is how much of a blank canvas it is. We came from another place where we had really nice big windows and in theory that's great, but actually having less light in this room specifically has been really great in improving our sleep quality and keeping me in bed a little longer. I don't know. I feel like that's honestly true. I'm like, this is a one room where I'm like, I don't need that much light. It feels good to like, I literally just sleep here and then I can live everywhere else.

What's one thing you can't live without?

I guess I'll say in terms of like material possessions, I don't have that much because we move around a lot. So I try to keep things pretty simple. One of my favorite pieces that we have is an artwork that we have in our bedroom. It was done by a friend of mine from high school who is an artist. Her name is Natalie Moreno. And she made this piece, did not talk to me about it or mention anything to me about it, but I saw her post it on Instagram and I immediately knew I needed it. It is a little, what would you call this? It's a truck from our hometown, where I grew up in Miami, that sells produce. So he goes around and sells like bags of oranges or bananas or onions, and everybody around knows that this person sells produce so they come to his truck and buy fresh produce every morning. But I want to say it's a few miles from my house like where I lived before leaving Miami and it's also on the way to Frank and I's favorite thrift store and it just reminds me of home and it has a lot of it has a lot of symbolism about being Cuban especially in Miami and actually the truck the person who owns a truck his last name is Pena which is also my last name we're not related but I just love it so much and it means so much to me especially coming from someone that I grew up with and yeah it just references our culture and where we came from. So I love it and I love its colors and how beautiful she illustrated it. How beautifully she illustrated it.

What is your favorite thing about your Eucalypso sheets?

Ooh, so I absolutely love how soft and cool it is, especially in the summer. I'm a really hot sleeper. I feel like a lot of people struggle with this. My husband literally says I'm a human heater. So having something that feels cool and honestly just like it feels so luxurious getting into bed every night. I love that it's woman owned and that it's a local brand as well.

How does your work as a photographer inspire your home?

As a photographer, you're kind of trained to make spaces or experiences look really great. So I feel like I try to find magic and beauty in everyday things. So I think keeping that in mind and also even though I mostly do portraits, I find that nature inspires me a lot. So trying to bring as much nature into the space or making sure that nature is accessible to me in my space is really important to me as well.

What is an item you always keep on your nightstand?

This is a nerdy answer but it’s my retainers! I keep it in this stylish colorful little container so you can’t tell, but I always keep it next to me before I sleep.

In Bed With...Carla Juliett