Kathleen Hackett’s new book on “Brooklyn Interiors” takes a refreshing look at homes untouched by interior designers.

“There were no decorators involved – one of my parameters was that people put together the homes themselves,” she says. “All the houses came together by virtue of the people who live in them – they were not created by someone who doesn’t live in the house.”

The result is a 240 page tome, loaded with lively photographs by Matthew Williams and creatively directed by Hilary Robertson. It’s all about the people, and how they live in the spaces they’ve chosen.

“The owners are the house, and the owners look like the houses,” she says. “The houses are a real reflection of who lives there.”

And the subjects chosen are not just brownstones. In some cases – like Victoria and Richard Emprise’s residence in Red Hook, the home is not a house at all. It’s a boat named the Yankee.

“I wanted to show that despite the fact that Brooklyn is becoming the poster place for gentrification, which it is, there’s still a tremendous amount of diversity in terms of how people are living,” she says. “Brooklyn is not a place where people covet other people’s things – they want what they want because they want it.”

Hackett and her husband have renovated two homes in Brooklyn themselves, and are living now in their third. So she’s got hands-on knowledge of the process – and the community.

“We’ve put together three places of our own and each has a story – it’s not a rule, but we just gravitate to things people make – things with some texture and guts,” she says. “And that’s why I was drawn to Brooklyn in the first place -there are lots of like-minded people who appreciate those things.”

And now she’s documented the things they love – from Boerum Hill to Ditmas Park.

For more, go here.

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