Adelaide Villa

It's extremely hot here. After our chilly big 40th party a few weeks ago, the weather has (naturally) warmed up to the oven-like temperatures that we usually experience in an Adelaide Summer. This weekend we've spent it either in the cool of the house, trapped by the air-conditioning… or in the pool. It's been 40C both days.

Mr AV and I went out to dinner together to From Orient in the city. I wore this navy Tory Burch shift dress, which has a sparkly neckline so negating any further accessorises. Easy dressing. Food was delicious, service was lacking.

I've spent the rest of the weekend doing all sorts of odd jobs. I've finally got around to writing out the 22 thank you cards that I owe for all the presents we were given by our friends for our 40th party. I don't mind writing a thank you card or two occasionally, but it always makes me realise how little handwriting we now do. When writing things en masse like this I find my hand cramps up, and there are the frequent spelling mistakes that occur when there's no auto spell check (I am terrible at spelling, much to my late Mother's chagrin. She was a High School English Teacher once upon a time). There were a few things that were nice about this task - I love using nice stationary, I had some very nice Open Garden Australia stamps, and I always feel a great sense of satisfaction when I've finished and I get to stamp our address on the back of all the envelopes. This is one of my favourite things - the address stamp. I ordered it when we moved into the house from an etsy seller, and it saves a lot of time when I've got a few letters or cards to send out. The stamps make for a good housewarming present too.

This also lead to me deciding to clean all my silver, as I was staring at a tarnished pen pot during most of the writing. Now the Christening mug/ pen pot is all sparkly, plus the toast/ letter rack, letter opener and my tea strainer and various pieces of cutlery and salt and pepper pots. I was also prompted to clean the silver by the fact that I went to Costco on Friday morning and bought a 6KG bag of Baking Soda. So handy for all my cleaning jobs! I like to put a mixture of vinegar and bicarb down the drains every few weeks to keep them clear, as well as using it for other cleaning tasks and baking and as a result I get through the small boxes available at the supermarket fairly quickly.

before

The trip to Costco caused a few other things, like cleaning out the pantry. This was because I'd shoved all those bulk buy boxes of bits and pieces in it before rushing out to do other jobs, and it was a terrible mess.

after

the drawers weren't too bad though. It was mainly the shelves

I do love a trip to Costco, and I was very excited when they finally opened in Adelaide last year as I used to go all the time in Melbourne. The problem with our Melbourne house was that there was very limited storage, as it was so small… so I had to be careful not to overbuy. But now with a bigger house, and lots of cupboards and a cellar to store things in and a growing family it's perfect.

My favourite things to buy are the books (perfect for kid's birthday party presents), the bunches of 24 long stemmed roses (as above in the photo on my hall table), the gift wrap ribbon (latest purchases were ombre pink and an ombre green wire edged 50m in a roll), the discounted movie tickets, the incredibly cheap petrol, and the fresh produce which is very fresh, very good quality and about 1/4 the price of my local supermarket.

I've caught up on my design magazine reading. I have to say the best thing about the latest Architectural Digest was the ads. I will be cancelling my subscription. The English House and Garden never disappoints, and Veranda is also reliably good though.

Around the garden things are frying. Some plants do very well in the heat though. Like the thistles. I have a lot of weeding to do once the weather cools down enough to get out in there.... But my side garden is thriving. Do you remember what it looked like when it was planted back in September last year?

Here it is now.

The trees are probably more than double the size they were, and the hedges are looking really lush and healthy. They're actually noticeable now, rather than when we first planted them and they were barely visible. I have to get out and paint the white pipe too - it's for the solar heating for the pool, and is a bit of an eyesore. Eventually the rose will grow up it and conceal it.

first planted

now

I have olives growing in the olive trees in here.

And figs growing on the new fig tree in the back garden. Excitingly the parrots have not yet discovered them, so I haven't had to net the tree and we've been picking them and enjoying them in a baby spinach salad with blue cheese, toasted pine nuts and balsamic and olive oil dressing. So yummy.

The upside of the heat has been the (very) balmy evenings. Last night in the evening after the two youngest children were in bed, Mr AV, our oldest and I played a few rounds of Petanque on the new court. The adults played with a glass of chilled Rose in hand.. it was very pleasant to be out in the garden on such a warm evening. We need quite a few more plants in this area (it's largely unplanted aside from the hedges and trees), but things are growing, and it's all looking good.

Hope you're enjoying your weekend.

Farrow and Ball "Hague Blue"via

My favourite thing to do with a spare five or ten minutes is to busy myself on Pinterest. For those of you who are not on Pinterest, it is much like Facebook or any other social media in that you follow people, and they follow you. You can see what people pin, and they can see what you pin… and then re-pin away at will. One thing I see an awful lot of are Australian pinners obsessively pinning paint colour pins for US or English only available paint brands. These are usually Sherwin Williams, Benjamin Moore and Farrow and Ball paints. There is also one blogger that I'm aware of who has imported paint from the US to get the colours that she fell in love with in a magazine or on the internet.

Farrow and Ball "Pavillion Grey"via

There are a few reasons why thinking about importing paint is not a good idea, aside from the obvious cost involved. Firstly, paint colours change according to light. In Australia, we have extremely strong light - colours that work overseas do not work in the same way under our lighting conditions, the colour will alter from what you thought you were getting. This also holds true for the performance of the paint. Australian paint is made to hold up to extremely harsh UV levels. Pigment in a paint will fade (just as everything else does), so having paint made here for our conditions is better if you want a colour that still looks the same in a few years time. A third consideration is that many builders and painters will not warranty work that is done using a paint brand they are either unfamiliar with, or that they have no ability to go back to the source if something goes wrong (like the paint flaking off) due to a lack of warranty from the company.

Farrow and Ball "Down Pipe"via

The next point to remember is that the vast majority of photographic images you see that you like enough to pin (or in a print magazine) are professional photos, and they have had the colour saturation amped up, or dulled down, or photoshopped in some way. If you're viewing the image on a computer screen it will also have settings that change the way things look on it, and that may be different from the settings the producer of the image uses, so a colour you love on screen is not necessarily what will arrive in a pot from overseas.

Farrow and Ball "Hardwick White", Plain English Kitchens via

I know a lot of people bemoan the lack of paint colour choice in Australia - however unlike many other things we lack in terms of choice, we do have boutique brands of paints (Porter's and Murobond amongst a few others), and several big name brands (Dulux, Haymes, Solver, British Paints, Taubmans) with the bigger brands having thousands of colours in their ranges. The problem is that you won't necessarily see these colours when you go to a hardware store and choose a paint colour. Just like anything fashion related, Colour forecasters will put together a range for the paint chips you see in the stores from the very large range of individual colours within their brand.

Benjamin Moore "Beach Glass"via

Some of this relates to what they think people like (i.e. the majority of people tend to be attracted to 'clear' colours - I'll explain what I mean by this further down), and partially this is set by what the colour and trend forecasters internationally say will be popular. Every era has its own particular paint colour story to define it, browns/ neutrals were the early to mid 2000's, currently its greys and linen colours, the 70's orange, yellow and dark brown, the 80's were peachy pinks, corals and turquoise, the 90's yellow and blue. So you'll see a lot of choice in those fashion colours on sample chips, and maybe not so much in a colour you like but that is not currently on the radar.

Benjamin Moore "August Morning"via

The colours you'll see in the Hardware store relate to all these things - if they were to put out all their colours on sample chips, you'd find there would be over 5,000 sample colours from Dulux alone.

Benjamin Moore "Wythe Blue"via

Back to the colour factor. Generally speaking, the reason why a lot of people love the overseas paint brands, like Farrow and Ball, is because they are a little 'dirty'. They have a bit of black pigment mixed in, and this gives the paint colour a sophistication and depth. You can in fact replicate their paint colours using Australian paint, it's just that if you're trying to do that off the chips in the Hardware store it's unlikely you're going to find the exact colour you're after. As I mentioned upthread the biggest sellers are 'clear' colours. They have a bit of a primary element to them, even if they're quite pale pastels. There's not a lot of depth and dimension to them, but these are the colours the average person will be attracted to on a tiny sample chip. My late Mother made a bit of an error with a yellow paint colour that she painted their casual living room in. Unfortunately at the time she was choosing paint colours, I was tied up in a meeting at work. I texted her back that I'd get out the Atlas and choose a yellow for her after the meeting was over, but it appears that when she said she needed a yellow straight away, she meant absolutely at that moment. So by the time I got the Atlas out and rang her to give her a name, she'd already instructed the painter and bought the paint. It's quite a bright yellow with a lot of white mixed in, so in my view, it doesn't have a lot of sophistication to it in terms of depth of colour, and isn't particularly period correct for the house. It's been a tricky colour to work around, as curtains etc came after the colour had already been chosen and applied, and it can look a little sickly under low light levels. But as my Mum said "It looked good on the chip". And this is another tip - get a sample pot. I never choose paint colours off a tiny chip. As a designer I can order A4 sized samples for projects, and frequently find it's often not the colour you were thinking it would be when it's in a larger sheet. So if you're thinking of choosing a colour try painting a larger sample first to see if it is what you thought it was.

Farrow and Ball "Blue Grey" via Tone on Tone blog

There are so many variables as to how a colour will look when its applied to a wall - geography and light levels for that particular room are the biggest. So if you fall in love with a paint colour in a magazine and you'd like to replicate it, try finding it locally - you can definitely find that colour in Australia, it's just not necessarily going to be displayed on the rack of a paint chip selection in a hardware store. If you naturally don't want to hire a Architect or Interior Designer to assist you in picking a couple of paint colours, you can always have a colour consultant come to your home from one of the paint companies (I linked to Dulux, however the other companies may offer this too if you check their website) and show them the images of colours you'd like to replicate. For a small cost outlay you'll end up saving yourself a lot of potential heartache and will find the colour you fell in love with in a magazine or Pinterest on your walls, without having to freight it over with all the potential pitfalls that may bring.

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I touched on this topic a few weeks ago when discussing that people often now enter their house exclusively via their lock up garage, or their back door and that in many homes a front door has become completely unused. A lot of modern design often gives a fairly perfunctory experience for the welcome to a house with the front door as well - many Australian townhouses give priority to a double garage and driveway with the front door being pushed to the side, often recessed, and the garage ending up being front and centre of the design.

fairly standard modern Australian townhouse via

While this may be practical, it's not the best way to welcome people to your home. If anything this says that you're not interested in having visitors, as you've essentially made it hard to find the front door, given an unwelcoming vibe by having a visitor walk across the driveway to get to it, and if it's not softened in any way (interesting door colour, plants etc) it can most definitely give off a "go away" feel.

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There's a lot of psychology behind the traditional entry. It's a transition point between the public and private realms, and it's the first clue you give anyone to your aspirations in life (Grand/ Informal/ Unassuming etc). I've mentioned before the book A Pattern Language, which is a bit of an Architectural bible. It talks a lot about the best way a house relates to the wider community via the design of the facade - and the one thing that is consistently stated is that a garage should not be given priority. Unfortunately though, sometimes practicality dictates that this is the only way a house can be designed… but if you can at least balance it out by giving a good Front Door experience, you can alleviate some of the lack of welcome you can otherwise experience.

Adelaide cottage front garden via

Greenery
Soften an entry with greenery. If you have acres of paving leading up to the front door (which is what it will feel like if you have a large driveway taking up most of what would otherwise be a front garden) you need things in pots. Living things always make everything feel more welcoming.

London town house planters via

One of my favourite things about London are the window boxes and planters prevalent in the houses and apartments in the posh areas (Belgravia, Kensington, Knightsbridge, Chelsea etc). These are usually tended by specialist window box gardeners (really), who will change the plants over seasonally and create quite amazing variety in tiny little boxes. The people who live in these houses understand that even when you have no opportunity to plant things in the ground, greenery will always give a more welcoming entry to a home.

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Front Path
Overscaling the width of the path, as demonstrated in the image below gives more prominence to people, rather than cars. I did this with our front path, which is fairly short (we don't have a deep front garden). The prior path was extremely narrow - I made ours around 1.6m wide, which gives a feel of generosity of space, even when there is a short transition from street to door. Consider a different material to construct the path out of from the driveway, and have a separate gate for foot traffic. This will give emphasis on the person, rather than the cars.

Paul Bangay design via

Door mat
Get a decent door mat! This seems obvious, but often you grow so used to what you've had for years you get a little blind to how others will view it. Large sized ones are always good for the reasons I've mentioned above with the path. If you have a front door with sidelights around it, a wider than normal doormat works well, as the photo above also demonstrates.

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Front door colour
People love a colourful front door. In Australia this is not common at all for a few reasons. If you're in a group of townhouses, you'll need Body Corporate approval…. which will usually mean you won't be allowed to change the colour. If you have an old house, and live in an old suburb, you'll likely have local council heritage restrictions on what colour you can paint your door. It will be restricted to the heritage colour palette, which means you won't have a lot of options… but anyone else not restricted by these two things can have some fun.

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Lighting
Lighting will add a lot of ambience to a home, and if you're pushed for space in your entry way to do much else to soften it, it may be one of your only ways to add a bit of personality. The 3 lanterns below give a really nice warm ambience to the entry (as do the plants in their zinc planters).

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Finally, just making sure it's clean is always a good idea! If you're entering your home via your garage or side door all the time, you need to go out and check how the front entry looks - piles of dead leaves and a dusty front step does not make for much of a welcome. We all become used to our homes but trying to see it through the fresh eyes of a stranger might prompt you to give it a clean once a week, so get out the broom!

Belgravia town house via

I was going through my draft posts today, and realised I've got around 7 half written posts on Design or Interiors sitting there… so I'm going to try to get them finished off and up on the blog at last… stay tuned for a bit of a design month (or two).

I've written a few posts on budgeting for a renovation, however after recently writing out a long email to a friend after she asked for advice on what was worth spending or saving money on in her upcoming renovation project I thought it might be a good idea to put it in a blog post… and it's ended up being so long that I'm splitting it into two, and will do part 2 on Where to Spend separately.

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Like anything in life renovating is a bit of a tightrope walk where you're trying to work out how to give maximum impact for the money you have to spend. And just as you can mix high and low cost fashion in an outfit and still give the overall impression it's expensive, so too you can do this in a renovation or new build with the materials you choose, and the design elements you decide are worth spending money on.

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Most people are blown away by the cost of the joinery (kitchen/ laundry/ wardrobe cupboards) when they receive a builders quote. It's one area that can quickly add an enormous amount of cost to a house renovation, and is therefore a great starting point to save a lot of money by looking at using cheap finishes like laminate. Your Architect/ kitchen designer may be really surprised if you ask for it, and may well try to talk you out of it (I've had many friends that have had this experience), but it's a favourite finish of mine and I've used it all through our house. It gets a bad rap now, as everyone likes 2 pac (real estate agents in particular), but frankly no one can tell the difference when they walk through your house in a couple of minutes, and it's much more durable so far better with families as it will withstand bumps and knocks. It also looks good if you pick wisely (in the cheaper ranges such as Laminex I like the solid colours rather than faux timber grains), and is so much cheaper than 2pac, and a lot nicer than vinyl wrap. I wrote a long post about the pros and cons of kitchen finishes here

My dressing room with Laminex Stipple Seal

I once used laminate in a very high end house that I did in Melbourne, and we had the Poliform rep (high end Italian Kitchen/ Furniture company) come through the house to discuss some furniture and walk in wardrobes, and she pointed at the kitchen and referred to it as 2pac… so even she couldn't tell. In my house I've used it for our walk in wardrobe in a dark colour (Stipple Seal), and I use Parchment a lot, which is a good white and is in our Laundry. I'd also suggest using a laminate bench top in the laundry area. The difference in cost between stone and laminate in our laundry was $1200 for a reasonably small stretch of bench, so things like that add up quickly. Use stone on the kitchen bench tops though if you can afford it as it's more durable (you can't set hot things directly onto a laminate bench top) and is better for resale if you end up selling down the track.

my laundry - laminate cupboards and bench top in Laminex Parchment with a mirrored splash back (mirror cost the same as doing standard tile, but was a much better choice for bouncing light and adding interest)

You can also save a lot of money in kitchen handles, door knobs etc by ordering direct from the US. Our kitchen handles were $12 US each, and aside from the more limited selection in Australia, comparable handles here sell for around the $70/ handle mark locally. So that was a massive saving (and there was no compromise on quality). If you look at how many handles you have in a kitchen/ laundry/ bathroom/ wardrobe you'll be ordering in the region of around 50 plus, so that adds up quickly.

cheap brass handles in my kitchen

You can get carried away with appliances in the kitchen and easily blow your budget - go mid range in whatever brand you choose. The top of the range tend to just have more features (like auto cooking selections where you choose that you're cooking a lamb roast and it works it out for you). They don't necessarily give you better temperature control or change the taste of the food magically. But they can end up being a few thousand per item more depending on the brand you're looking at.

La Cornu range via

Regarding appliances in general, really think hard about what you'll use when cooking and be realistic about how much you life will change with a new kitchen. I have had clients that have had a fantasy in their head of entertaining large family gatherings regularly, and then have not actually had anyone over after completing their home. The purchases for their new kitchen involved multiple ovens/ steam ovens/ combination microwave ovens etc. which all sit idle. If you don't enjoy cooking and don't entertain much then a new steam oven will not prompt you to start doing more of it. It is also my experience that people that have bought steam ovens do not use them, with many regretting their (very expensive) purchase. If you're someone that steams food all the time, then this is a great option for you. If you don't do a lot of steaming (the majority of people), you'll likely not start just because you bought it. The combi microwave/ ovens you can get also fall into this category. Combi ovens are around $3,000, which is a lot for a very small oven, or a microwave. You'd get more use from a second full sized oven or a double wall oven (which is what I got as it saved space) and which is actually cheaper than buying a combo oven. Built in coffee machines are also incredibly expensive for the quality of coffee they deliver. We had one in our house in Melbourne, as I felt it was a good sales tactic for when we went to sell the house - and it was as the new buyer wanted it written in the contract that the built in coffee machine went with the house. But if you're not planning on moving, then a bench top coffee machine will likely give you better coffee for a fraction of the price. Kitchens are a really easy place to blow through a lot of money - as many home renovation tv shows can attest where people put in kitchens that cost $70,000-$100,000 and which would not add on that sort of money to the sale price if the house were to be sold.

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Don't go overboard with home automation - it all dates so quickly it's just lost money, and you can absolutely burn through money installing it. The technology is generally completely obsolete within 10 years. We have none of it in our house, and every Architect I know won't put it in their own homes for this reason. They always have problems - we have a friend that couldn't open their front door for a month (it had keyless entry that malfunctioned), or another house I worked on had the blinds going up and down in the entire house at 2am every night and no one could work out why (a bug in the system that had the automation people and the electrician blamed each other). Realistically you're unlikely to regularly check in on your home to turn on the lights and air-conditioning on your way home from work (and all the other fabulous things they say you can do), so if you're looking at prioritising expenditure, cut it out of the budget. It's great when it works, and a nightmare when it doesn't.

my kitchen with linoleum flooring

Flooring was one area we saved a lot of money in our renovation. I wrote about it here. If you look at finishes that have become popularised due to Architects using them in the renovation of their own home, you'll often find they use commercial materials in a domestic setting to save money, which is what I did with our flooring in the extension. This was how polished concrete floors originally came into popularity, why industrial style windows/ off form concrete walls/ alucobond cladding and all manner of other materials have been used in house design. The average Architect is not well paid - Design in general does not generate huge riches (of course there are superstar Architects doing well, but your average professional does not fall into that category - it is the worst paid profession in Australia when compared to Engineers/ Accountants/ Doctors/ Lawyers/ Dentists). Architects and designers have great houses because they have to get creative with stretching their budget and therefore investigate using materials and building techniques that are not 'normal' domestically. If you pick one thing like that for your house and use it to cut costs, it doesn't give an overall feel of budget to your renovation. What does give a budget feel to a house is if you try to use a material that imitates an expensive finish - so a stone look-alike rather than real stone, or laminate flooring rather than real timber boards. They never quite look like the real thing - it is far better to use a different finish entirely to cut your cost, rather than trying to imitate the more expensive finish, and this is what most Designers will do. Think of it a little like seeing someone with a designer bag over their shoulder that you see from a distance - it might look great, but as you get closer to them you'll notice it isn't leather and looks like vinyl, the seams aren't well sewn, it doesn't sit the same over the arm of the wearer, and that it's clearly a cheap fake and then it becomes a distraction from the rest of their outfit which might otherwise be perfectly nice.

concrete floors via

So coming up later in the week, I'll add in Part 2 - Where to Spend. This is naturally not an exhaustive list... it's a pretty broad topic, so I'm really just scratching the surface and of course this is all coloured with my personal viewpoint. But hopefully it will give those of you planning building works some things to think about. Ultimately if you are keen on a 2pac finish for your kitchen having considered all options, or really think you'll use a steam oven, then go ahead and put it in - it's never a one size fits all approach to design, which is why a good Architect takes so many factors into consideration when planning the design of a house for their client.

This is the part 2 of the Where to Spend/ Where to Save, and these are the things that I feel are worth spending money on when you're building or renovating. Part 1, Where to Save is here

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Lighting always makes a real impact and gives a designer feel to any house, so allow a decent amount in your budget for some really good feature lights. Not just feature pendants/ chandeliers, but up lighters, art lights in walls, wall sconces, outside lighting - these really personalise a home and give a lot of wow compared to other things.

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Most people cut their lighting significantly as it's the last thing that is purchased… and generally building costs overrun by the stage you get to lighting. Putting aside a decent amount, or purchasing your lights at the start before starting construction will ensure you have a really polished feel in your renovation. A perfect example of underwhelming lighting can be seen below - this pendant is a little insipid design-wise, it's under scaled for the size of the room and table, and to me looks like an afterthought and a totally missed opportunity to put something in with impact that would anchor the table and create a focal point.

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Don't do masses of downlights in the ceiling - it makes it look like swiss cheese, and you'll likely use lamps more as you'll want light at your height rather than overhead (overhead is less flattering, and much harsher). If your living area has sofas that are away from the wall, get some floor boxes put in under the sofas - these have power points in them so you can put your lamp cords into that rather than having cords running across the floor. We have no overhead lighting in our casual living area, so it's all wall lights and lamps. The lamps are connected to the floor boxes and then switched on and off from the wall light switch, just like in a hotel. Doesn't cost a lot extra when you're already wiring up a new house, but it makes life much easier.

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Taps are worth spending money on. Anything you touch and use every day should be the best quality you can afford, as you'll really appreciate it. Taps are also something you really notice in a bathroom or kitchen from a visual standpoint too, so are definitely worth spending money on as they're part of the overall design impact. You should not purchase your taps directly from overseas where they are usually a lot cheaper - we have very high plumbing standards in Australia for water conservation and other regulatory reasons, and plumbers are unable to offer warranty and certification on overseas taps, so you may find it hard to get the installed at any rate. The cost of sanitary ware (toilets/ hand basins etc) can be in the bargain sector (I do think you can get high quality no name sanitary ware for low prices), but the taps are worth spending money on.

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Allow enough money for wallpaper or feature finishes. There is a massive variety out there from subtle to bold, but it will give your home more of a finished look if you use it in a couple of rooms. Even using it on the back of built in bookshelves is fabulous (like grasscloth) and makes a big impact.

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Natural light is an excellent thing to spend money on - skylights such as the Velux ones are invaluable to bring it into dark hall ways or rooms and these are the ones you can see sky through (sky windows). They make a huge difference compared to the solar tubes with those plastic diffusers you can't see through (although if you have to use them due to your roof line profile, that's better than nothing). I use them extensively in bathrooms - in our ensuite bathroom we have an openable one with a remote, the powder room has a fixed glass one. Our living area has the ceiling lantern which brings in masses of light and ventilates the rear extension effectively, and a friend recently put one into her dark Victorian hall, and it made an enormous difference to the whole feel of the house by bringing light into a previously gloomy space.

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Choose a standout feature in your project and spend the money on it. For me this was our steel windows. It could be you make a special feature out of a staircase by having a special handrail made…. it could be a fireplace, a wall of natural stone, built in wall panelling or library shelves, or a really special feature light. But if you balance out the special feature by being more restrained in other places you'll highlight the feature, and save money on simplifying elsewhere. It will give your feature maximum impact and distract from other budget saving measures you've employed.

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If you put carpet in, choose the best quality underlay possible rather than skimping on it. It makes more of a difference to the way the carpet feels and performs long term than you'd believe.

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I really feel strongly that you should spend money on good insulation. Always put in much more than is recommended - having lived in a house for a year that had terrible insulation in it, I can attest that you will be permanently uncomfortable in your home if you skimp. There's no joy in staring at acres of 2pac joinery and beautiful marble while you shiver, and are then hit by astronomical electricity/gas bills after running your heating and cooling 24/7. It's invisible, but completely worth it. The recommended r value in South Australia for your ceiling is 3.2. I don't feel this is adequate at all… I'd suggest an r value of 4 at a minimum (the higher the r value the better the rate of insulation), and if you can put in double layers of insulation to get to 6 you'll be very happy in the long term.

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Finally, the most obvious is that it's always with spending money on an Architect. It is always tempting to cut out the fee you'd be spending on a designer when looking at a tight renovation budget… but Architects will give your renovation all the intangible things that you won't get through using a builder or draftsperson alone. Good design does not come about from building a large physical space to maximise the floor area that you can get for your budget - it is a strange truth that you can have a much smaller space that will in fact feel larger because of the way the space and light is manipulated by ceiling height/ window choice etc …. this was something I touched on in a blog post about the Modern Australian renovation, and which are all the things that will make a difference to your experience and enjoyment of a renovation. The potential saving you will make from choosing not to use an Architect or Interior Designer can wind up costing you added light/ space/ overall experience and the elusive x factor.

I've been wanting to write a post about the Dining Room for quite a while. In Australia, it's become virtually redundant in modern design to have a formal Dining Room. Our casual lifestyle means that more people have embraced the concept of open plan informal living… and devoting a space solely for formal Dining (and which will often only be used a handful of times at best per year) seems to be a waste of space.

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Of course there is the other problem in that eating a meal from an actual dining table has become rare, and that more and more people fail to actually sit at a table for a meal together (or alone even). Many families, particularly those with teenagers or young adults in them, will have family members running on such varying schedules due to part-time jobs/ studying/ sport/ extra curricular activities that the act of actually sitting at one time together at a table has become a special occasion in itself due to rarity.

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We all know the benefits that come with sharing a meal with others, so this post is not going to become a lecture on the importance of sitting down at a table while eating/ table manners/ placement of cutlery/social history of the dining room etc. I thought I'd instead discuss the selection of dining furniture.

Firstly: table size. Generally speaking you require 60cm per person in length for a long dining table. For a round table, you'll need a 135cm diameter to seat six, 150cm diameter to seat 8 and so on. When working out furniture placement in a room and table width, you'll need at least 1 meter behind a chair for push out/ pull in and general circulation space. It is always a good idea to get out a tape measure in the actual space and measure out your proposed table size, and use newspapers on the floor to mark it out properly so you can visualise it and make sure it works.

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In terms of width of a table, a 1metre wide rectangular table is quite narrow - you won't be able to put much down the centre of the table if you like to put out dishes/ platters/ bowls with food on them. 1.2m wide is ideal, however it is better to go narrower if you don't have the 1m clearance around the table for the chairs as noted above.

John Stefanidis design circa 1990's

Tables can be very expensive, and generally it is they that make the most impact in a room in a decor sense. But I have to caution that the money you should invest in your setting should be in the chairs. If you consider how much wear and tear the chair gets, along with the fact that if you may end up sitting down for a long meal with friends for many hours (and therefore experience a sore back from a poorly designed chair), the chairs are the item worth investing in. You want something that is comfortable and durable with some degree of aesthetic flair.

via

If you buy cheap chairs you will get the same result that I have had with my horrible Eames replica chairs. They are uncomfortable to sit in, most are on the verge of collapse, and we are one short as one collapsed completely and could not be resuscitated. When we have people over we have to caution them on how to sit in the chairs so that they don't fall through the backs (it's happened a few times). We then spend most of the meal in a heightened state of anxiety as our guests's chairs creak and make cracking sounds, terrified they may end up on the floor. They were cheap, they are 6 years old, but I am not happy that they are going into landfill so soon after they were made. Such a waste on so many levels. The chairs were $100 each, which is pretty cheap in Australia for a new dining chair. So having said that, we bought 10 chairs, and $1,000 seemed like a lot at the time considering that the dining table was so expensive and we were paying for the entire new dining furniture all at once. Now, six years later… it seems like we've wasted the money. With hindsight I'd far rather have bought fewer, more expensive (durable) chairs and gradually built it up to a set of 10 then have bought the cheap ones all at once, with an end result of broken, uncomfortable and essentially unusable chairs. The saying "when you buy quality, you only cry once" is pretty apt.

my broken Eames Replica chairs

So the short version of that tale of woe is that now I advise people to put the money into the chairs. A cheaper dining chair that is well made is around the $400 mark when new (in Australia) with prices going up from there. $850 will buy you a real Eames dining chair, and there are of course chairs that are upwards of $3000 each depending on who designed them.

Another consideration when looking to buy your dining furniture is to consider who is using it. If you have a young family, or a family of teenagers then buying a highly polished "perfect" looking dining table may end up causing you a lot of angst if your family are not terribly well behaved with it. While I do not advocate waiting until your children leave home to buy good furniture and making do with the shabby in the meantime, you just have to buy wisely so that your choice reflects your lifestyle particulars and also has some aesthetic value. Our dining table is made from recycled wood and has a distressed finish. This has worked well with babies and small children who have scratched and banged and added to the general distress in a way that works with the original design. It was not my first choice of table - that was a more perfect looking modern designer table…. but having returned from a day of looking at tables in showrooms and then watching my oldest child (who was 2.5 at the time) smash his little fork into the existing dining table a few times that night while having his dinner, the distressed finish and more rustic table was chosen.

my rustic style dining table in our casual living area

Similarly, buying upholstered chairs when you have toddlers or young children is a recipe for disaster. There are a lot of chairs available in either plain timber finishes or in polypropylene that are wipeable, and it's far better to accommodate the actuality of your life, than to have chairs that are encrusted with the remnants of meals past.

my Sideboard

my sideboard with food served buffet style for a dinner party

I'd also suggest that if you can possibly accommodate somewhere else to serve food off, you'll be very pleased to have it for larger meals. We have our French antique cherry wood side board, which is extra wide. It's perfect for putting out platters of food and doing a meal buffet style, or for holding all the bottles of wine and extra things for meals that are already plated and served to table. If you're in an open plan living room your kitchen island bench may double up for this, but if you can accommodate the extra bit of furniture it's well worth it as it will keep the kitchen free for the actual act of cooking.

rustic table dressed up for a dinner party

In terms of formal dining in a separate room, things have changed drastically in the formal dining room in the past 10 years. For a start, as more and more people have done away with having a special dedicated stand alone room, the very formal furniture has naturally been jettisoned as well. Auction rooms are awash with Georgian, Regency, Victorian and Edwardian era Dining furniture from extension tables that will accommodate up to 14 or 16, sets of balloon back dining chairs, and large and heavy sideboards. In the early 1980's Victorian furniture was highly fashionable, as were large formal dining rooms, and now with our more casual lifestyle they are most definitely not. Like anything, it's cyclical so if you're after a bargain for the future and have room to accommodate it then a formal table and chairs might be a good investment. The big tip is that "brown furniture" as it has been called in a slightly derogatory manner for the past 15 - 20 years is starting to become fashionable again, so if you're interested in antiques these are the things to buy now. And if you're someone who has adult children that have stated they're not interested in inheriting your cherished family antiques, sit tight as they may yet change their mind.

Princess Marie-Chantal of Greece's Dining room in London via

It always feels special to me to be invited to someone else's home for meal - no matter if it's a simple Lasagna and a salad (as one friend used to make for us in Melbourne - she would say she wasn't a good cook, so would make what she was good at, and wouldn't use the excuse that it wasn't gourmet fare and multiple courses to not have people over). The act of hospitality is a great pleasure when we are living in a world so rushed, and in which it's becoming so difficult to make meaningful connections due to the pace of life. It's most definitely something worth celebrating with some decent dining furniture.

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The original kitchen from the real estate listing

I haven't done a Before and After of the house for a while, but I think this one is a pretty good transformation. Originally this room was the kitchen in our house, and would have been a kitchen from the time the house was built in 1901. It had last been renovated in the 1970's, and we used it as a kitchen/ dining room for the first three years we lived in the house up until the time the new extension was completed. We had made some small adjustments - during the renovations of the front of the house prior to moving in we'd bricked up one of the doors into the kitchen to the small adjacent servery (which became the children's bathroom), leaving one access point from the hallway.

and my non real estate (no wide angle lens) listing photos - this was just prior to demolition of this room

The other additional problem with this room is that the cellar is directly underneath it, and when a bathroom had been added onto the back of the house the original stairs were covered over, so a hatch had been cut out and a very steep stair/ladder added to access the cellar. As part of the extension we reopened up the original stair location which enabled us to remove the hatch in the old kitchen floor and re-board over the floors. A bedroom with cellar access would have been a little odd...

same angle as the top photo with a bit taken out for the powder room

The kitchen was definitely past its use by date, but the main problem that I had with this space related to the change in use and the plan for the reorganisation of rooms that we made. This room faces South so gets very little natural light, not ideal for a Child's bedroom, and was something that is exacerbated by the veranda that runs around the entire perimeter of the old part of the house making it even darker. The other thing was that I planned to take out a corner of the room to create the Guest W/C/ powder room with access from a new door in the hall. This bedroom was already going to be the smallest bedroom in the house, and was becoming even smaller by removing part of it for this purpose…. coupled with it being dark, having no interesting architectural features such as cornices, deep skirting boards or a fireplace (as it was a kitchen, these things had never been put in the room), it really was the worst room in the house.

To overcome all these deficiencies I decided that the best way to deal with the small space was to build in furniture. We needed to accommodate a desk (for future study, as my son is currently only 4 years old), bookshelves, somewhere to sit, a wardrobe, bed and bedside table. The room could easily have ended up feeling crowded by all these disparate elements, but by blocking the wardrobe, bookshelves, desk and seating into a custom built in unit I designed, it freed up floor area for playing, and created a neat and practical storage solution. With the absence of visual clutter the room feels more spacious than it is.

I designed this unit to run along the wall that has the window, as our windows are unusually low it precludes having standard height furniture like a desk or bed against it as they would cover over it. So the seating for the room is a window seat with a deep cushion and built in storage under, a wardrobe to the left of this, and on the right a built in desk with bookshelves above that are covered by doors when not in use. The desk has a pin board backing to it and built in power points for a lamp and for computer charging points.

In terms of colour choices for the room, that was determined by my then 2 year old Son. I really believe it is important to involve children in the design of their bedroom. Even very small children can usually tell you what colour they want their special space to be. I do try to balance this out though by making a room that can grow with the child into teenage years. It was therefore a slight challenge to be informed by my Son that he wanted an orange bedroom - his favourite colour. There was absolutely no way I was going to paint the walls orange - it's just not a restful colour, and I worried that he may well not want an orange bedroom as a teenager at any rate, particularly if it was so in your face. So the Anna Spiro for Porters Paints wallpaper "Higgledy Piggledy Stripe" in Chilli Coral was the perfect choice - all the white balances out the orange nicely - it's cheery and bright without being juvenile or unsophisticated. My son then said that he wanted light blue for his blind and window seat cushion - his second favourite colour. So China Seas "Aga Reverse" fabric in turquoise was the final choice (he approved all samples of wallpaper and fabric). The wallpaper needed a vibrant blue, rather than a pastel.

The main problem I then had was bedding. Unfortunately in Australia if you have a boy your choices are either blue (navy or sky) or grey bed linen. Any turquoise is usually in girls bedding and comes with flowers, as does anything with orange - usually it's balanced out with pink. In the end I ordered from the US from Serena and Lily a turquoise bedspread and matching pillow shams. I also ordered a white doona cover with orange frame border… it was irritating to have to do this, but I held off buying it for over a year in the hope that something would turn up locally that would work - nothing did.

The bed is from Lilly and Lolly (Australian company), who manufacture in Australia, and is solid Tasmanian Oak. It's the colour box bed and matching single drawer bedside table unit. I've been really happy with the quality- very solid, well made and should last a long time.

The bedside lamp is a cheapie from Freedom Furniture that fortuitously matched the turquoise colour with the shade and cord, the artwork above the bedside is from Tiggywinkle children's boutique in Melbourne who carry a large range of original artworks suitable for children. The artist is a botanical artist, so it's a beautifully detailed illustration. The other art in the room is the large framed animal alphabet scarf over the radiator, and the room really doesn't need anything more than that. I've hung all the artwork deliberately lower - you are supposed to hang art with the viewing point at eye level, but as this room is for a small child I decided to keep the scale low by hanging it lower - it works better with the low lines of the bed and bedside table too.

It's now a really cheery, cosy space that perfectly reflects the personality of its inhabitant. He loves his bedroom, and will often take himself off here to spend time looking at books on his windowseat, or playing stretched out on the floor with his cars or Lego. Hopefully it will also be a room that grows with him with only minor adjustments into his teenage years.

Details:

Wallpaper - Anna Spiro for Porter's Paint "Higgledy Piggledy Stripe" in Chilli Coral

Paint - Dulux Hog's Bristle 1/4 strength semi gloss enamel

Fabric - China Seas "Aga Reverse" Turquoise on Tint

Bedlinen - Serena and Lily "Cabin Quilt" and Sham in Turquoise, "Border Frame" duvet cover and sham in Coral

Furniture - Lilly and Lolly Colour box bed in Tassie Oak, single drawer bedside table in Tassie Oak

Lamp - Freedom Furniture

Carpet - Quest "St Louis" colour Kendall Coal

Pendant light (not seen in photos above) - Bell pendant light from Normann Copenhagen

back corner of the garden - hard to believe this is only 6 months old.

Up until the past few days, it's been an unusually cool start to Autumn in Adelaide. This has meant that for once the weather is matching what the season says it is supposed to be - we've had rain, grey days and crisp days and nights, rather than the usual March bake of 40C weather and Autumn fashions in the stores.

David Austin "Golden Celebration"

Leaves are turning bright crimson and saffron colours in the garden, but there are still the last of the roses putting on a display as well.

I went to a lovely Afternoon Tea at a friend's house out in her garden (it's currently School Holidays) - this was the setting. It wasn't quite so serenely peaceful as it might look in this photo though, as sitting at the adjacent table were 7 children under the age of 9 all demanding constant top ups of drinks, scones and sandwiches.

My children have spent a day collecting pine cones up in the hills in my Dad's garden, which which I've created a few arrangements in lieu of flowers about the place.

And I've been cooking up a storm out of my new cookbook, Jamie Oliver's "Comfort Food". I've always found his recipes to be very reliable. I've so far made the Moussaka and the Slow Cooked Shoulder of Pork with a fennel and potato gratin. Both were big hits, although the Moussaka was frankly very time consuming. The Pork was cooked for an Easter Lunch with my family, and was perfect as I put it in the oven the night before and let it cook away slowly overnight leaving the morning free for the egg hunt and other Eastery things with the children.

views down the side garden

With the change in season I've been turning out cupboards and drawers all through the house and taking large boxes of outgrown or worn out clothes to the Charity shop. I haven't yet read the cult book "The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up" by Marie Kondo but may yet do so - have any of you read it? Thoughts? The clear out has left room for a couple of new Winter additions though.

Above is my new Cable Melbourne jumper in grey (this is the back view of it - love the detail in the stitching and the curved hem). I've written about Cable Melbourne before as they are my favourite knitwear brand - much of it is made in Australia and the designs are modern and flattering (and warm!). I will usually buy one or two of their excellent pieces each Winter to add to my existing repertoire of knitwear. This jumper goes well with two of my existing scarfs, one silk in grey with orange edging (it's Fleurs et Papillons de Tissus), and a more casual grey toned Mulberry one that was a gift from a friend for my 40th. I've already worn all of these combos out and about with skinny jeans and ballet flats, and once it cools down further the new leather leggings that I bought heavily reduced in the January sales from Joseph (via David Jones).

On house interiors news I finally had confirmation that the lamp order I've been patiently waiting on from the US has finally left, and is now on a very slow boat inching its way to me. I have 10 lamps in the order, so I can't wait until they're here… it will certainly be a little brighter at night in the house. I've also just ordered two more chairs for the Sitting Room/ Library. They are going to go on either side of the card table under the painting, and will be in this Neisha Crosland fabric (swatch in the photo above) that I've been wanting to use for a very long time somewhere. Believe it or not neutrals can be the hardest thing to decorate with - there are literally a million shades of beige out there ranging from grey/ yellow/ pink/ green and brown toned shades so it was a happy day to find this fabric works perfectly in the room. The cushions I've got underway are still being made up by the workroom, so I'll likely have everything arrive at once to finish off this room with the lamps/ cushions/ chairs. Fun!

And just in time for the change in season and lots of nights in front of the fire we've finally got Netflix, and I'm loving it. If, like me, you're hopeless about remembering to watch a tv series and so miss crucial episodes and lose the train of what is going on (I couldn't follow Downton Abbey after half way through Series 2 for instance) this thing is perfect. Between Mad Men and Wolf Hall starting up on Foxtel, and now Netflix it will keep me busy.

There's the smell of wood fires hanging in the air at night, and the days are definitely getting shorter. Hope you're enjoying the change of season whether it's Spring or Autumn where you are.

via Vogue

Sometimes fashion is the leading edge in capturing the zeitgeist, and sometimes it's a follower. In this instance, when Marc Jacobs sent his models out at the recent Autumn/ Winter 2015 Ready to Wear show in New York, he was way behind the times - the prints that he used for his collection were all sourced from William Morris & Co, founder of the Arts and Crafts aesthetic movement, and were in many instances 140 years old.

via Vogue

There's a shift in Interiors and Fashion at the moment to embrace quieter, more muted tones, pattern on pattern, a bohemian vibe and to embrace individuality and the hand made.

The biggest mass appeal look in recent times via Adore Home

For the past 8 years or so the feel has been decidedly influenced by Hollywood Regency style as demonstrated above - lots of painted bamboo furniture, bright white walls offsetting strong saturated colour and bold geometric prints, Foo dogs, bar carts, zebra print, and gourd shaped lamps (or the cockatoo lamp bases) with mismatched shades. It's a little bit preppy, strongly graphic, and has a 50's retro vibe to it. It's also been beloved of bloggers the world over (just add peonies and a colour matched macaron) and is now a look that's been widely commercially copied and filtered decidedly into the mass market with Target enthusiastically joining in.

Via Morris & Co

The shift towards the Arts and Crafts movement comes from the current embracing of the home made, the artisanal, the bespoke… a nostalgia perhaps for the notion of individuality and honesty in design. All those people with beards running Bars who like to tell you earnestly about their specially foraged herbs arranged on the share plates and the selection of crafted artisanal beers they stock are a key leading indicator of the seismic shift in the creative sphere. When the world gets a little bit crazy, as it is at the moment with rampant mass consumerism and the instability terrorism is creating across the globe, people seek a feel of the unique and the sense of bohemian individuality, the authenticity of provenance, and hand in hand the desire for comfort and home.

via Morris & Co

The Arts and Crafts movement has its genesis with William Morris, principle founder in 1861. Morris was an artist, and his designs for fabrics, wallpapers, tapestries and furniture, and the approximately 600 books, published letters and papers he wrote during his lifetime about his subjects of interest were highly influential around the world. They captured the mood of the time, which was a reaction to the Industrial Revolution and the Great Exhibition held in London in 1851 which displayed the mass production of consumer goods. The disappearance of the hand made and crafted - the disappearance of the artist - he and others in the movement worked in direct opposition to.

via Morris & Co

His designs were influenced by the Medieval period, with a lyrical and flowing use of repetitive naturalistic pattern, and had a complexity and richness of design by the layering of pattern on pattern. There's a very strong play of foreground and background in his designs giving them a three dimensional quality and great depth. All his wallpapers were printed using woodblocks, and his fabrics used natural dyes which faded evenly and gave a gentle patina. The fabrics and wallpapers are still produced in England today (the company is now owned by Sanderson), with a very hand made feel to the papers and fabric produced with more modern techniques.

To modernise the range many are being recoloured to suit the current palette in interiors (the originals are also still available) with muted neutrals across the range, and foil elements in the wallpapers. Many new designs have also been created using tile patterns found at his original house (The Red House). I was at a showing yesterday for Morris & Co, and the way in which they were presenting the fabrics (as demonstrated in the images above) proves how modern they can be - they've mixed in Mid-Century Modern furniture with the traditional wallpapers and fabrics to give a freshness and vibrancy to the designs and show how it can fit with modern life for a younger generation of Morris enthusiasts.

A Morris & Co display at the Art Gallery of South Australia

Here in Adelaide we are very well aware of Morris's influence on design - the second largest collection of original William Morris & Co pieces are held at the Art Gallery of South Australia (the largest collection is held by the V&A in London). His biggest patron was a wealthy Adelaide family - the Barr-Smiths, who furnished 7 of their large houses with near continual shipments of rugs, stained glass windows, furniture, tapestries, wallpapers and furnishing fabrics sent from England.

Art Gallery of South Australia

The Arts and Crafts period influenced many of the very large houses and their interiors designed in and around Adelaide (Stirling in the Adelaide Hills has many of them) - Adelaide had many wealthy families at the time from Agricultural and mining booms. As tends to happen amongst friends you will often find that one will influence the others, and many of the wealthy Adelaide families collected Morris & Co and designed houses in the then fashionable Arts and Crafts style. Most of the houses have subsequently been modernised and redecorated and lost much of the richness of the original interior design schemes as a sparser aesthetic took over. A good example is below - this grand Victorian era staircase and entry hall would have originally had rich persian rug style runners on the stairs rather than pale carpet, and walls covered with a patterned wallpaper, rather than being painted out in varying shades of cream.

via

If you're fortunate to be in Birmingham in the UK this summer, then you'll be able to view the exhibition of Birmingham's Holy Grail tapestries at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. They are exhibited very infrequently due to their light sensitivity, but are stunningly detailed and large scale - worth a look if you can get there.

Holy Grail tapestry via Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery

Apparently there is also an upcoming collaboration between British clothing manufacturer Barbour and Morris & Co with Barbour jackets being lined with his iconic fabric designs.

This all just proves that everything old is new again, it's all just tweaked a smidge to make it current… and that the fickle wheel of fashion is moving yet again to embrace the Arts and Crafts aesthetic.

Hello, apologies for my silence - May is a busy month in our house, and if I look back over the past 2 years of blog posts they've always been a bit light on.

But I've had a bit of a binge on design books lately, so thought I'd write up my new books, some of which are new on the market, and some that are older.

Nicky Haslam's book propped with standard blogger- issue Macaron

First up in the Interiors category there is Nicky Haslam "A Designer's Life". I have to say that I love all Nicky's previous books, and he is in my estimation one of the premiere Interior Designers in the world, so I did have high expectations with this book. But they were met - absolutely beautiful photography, interesting projects and lots of well written text explaining his approach to design and some of the clever tricks he employed to create the spaces. I think the reason why his design resonates with me is that he approaches Interiors rather like set decorating. Lighting is of prime importance, he plays with scale a lot, and uses everyday objects in inventive ways - not every piece of furniture/ object deserves a place in a Sotheby's catalogue. One example is using those plastic eagles that are supposed to scare off pigeons in his apartment after spray painting them white. He uses a lot of techniques to draw the eye and distract from less desirable features or problems. It's a good book.

Anouska's yacht

Another Interior Designer that uses theatre techniques is Anouska Hempel, and her book is equally interesting. She has a very strict aesthetic (I think her schemes are instantly recognisable as being her design) with a lot of influence from the East (probably growing up in Australia and travelling through Asia has had a lasting impression). Her use of lighting is also very theatrical - lots of up lighters and down lights, candles etc, and screens (quite an Asian influence with her use of them) to create mystery and intimacy in large spaces. She also uses a lot of black - black walls are not uncommon in her schemes. All very moody and theatrical. Anyone familiar with her background knows that Blakes, her boutique hotel that launched a thousand boutique hotels after it, has a very distinctive style, and that is trademark Hempel.

Moving onto gardens - the first book I was excited to get my hands on was Bunny Williams "On Garden Style". It was a disappointment. It's possibly a must read if you're creating a garden in the Northern Hemisphere (like, say, Connecticut )… but I think that any of Paul Bangay's design books are more informative and better from a how-to design perspective, as he is after all formally educated in these areas, as well as having years of experience with vast ranges of climate, soil type, plants etc. This book is really very place centric, and gives a lot of information on how she created her garden which doesn't necessarily translate well to anything else.

Highgrove, which is a book about Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales' garden is beautiful and is full of luscious garden photos. It explains how the garden has developed over the past 35 years showing photos of before and after and throughout the seasons, with discussion on the Prince's garden preferences, focus on organics, permaculture, the different designers who have worked on it etc etc.

The last garden book was Myles Baldwin's "Period Gardens - landscapes for houses with history". I loved this book. It looks at house styles in broad periods (e.g. Victorian/ 1920's etc) and discusses the design styles that were popular with that type of house. I'm planning a few tweaks to the front garden now that the children are not playing there so much (as they now have a large back garden post renovation), and this book resonated with me enormously. Essentially, I'd like my front garden to look like the cover, with a mix of textured plants and interesting foliage which was a hallmark of the Colonial Victorian style of garden design.

Lastly, Architecture. I thought this book looked interesting "The Practice of Classical Architecture, the Architecture of Quinlan and Francis Terry" and it was one of the more thought provoking things I've read about Architecture for a long time. Classical Architecture is largely out of favour with modern Architects, and certainly in most Architectural degree courses the world over it is completely frowned upon in favour of the Modernist style (which ironically is around 70 years old now). Much of our new design is built with lifespans of 50 years only due to the materials used (glass, aluminium and concrete which degrade). The shock of the new alongside the old is celebrated and Architects that design in this style are feted by the Architectural elite (Gehry, Foster et al). I have written before of my Design Schizophrenia - I think I'm a classicist at heart, but there is a definite push/ pull with modern design for me, much of which I was indoctrinated with at University where Classicism is definitely frowned upon (as I wrote when doing my renovation design of my house I'd never designed a pitched roof before as you're not taught it at University and unless you work extensively in domestic Architecture for a practice that does pitched roofs you're not going to pick it up. This is but one example).

via

This book discusses the importance of Vernacular design (Vernacular meaning place appropriate - a style particular to the area that responds to climate/ historical influences such as patterns of settlement/ and constructed out of locally available materials). A lot of modern Architecture could be placed anywhere in the world - a glass box in Australia could be placed in America, could be placed in the UK, yet conversely we are told that this is more 'honest' that a mock Victorian (for instance) building that might be of a style that fits in with surrounding design. The stripping out of ornamentation (it is most definitely frowned upon at University design classes), and the cheapening of building materials were discussed… I found this book so interesting and thought provoking. The buildings they create are authentically period appropriate, and are masterpieces of their type. If you love Georgian architecture then this book is full of amazing houses they've designed and built for people all over the world. Lord Rothermere's house Ferne Park is one that has been extensively featured in print and is a pretty remarkable place in terms of the amount of authentic detail that has gone into it (a good article about it was written by The Devoted Classicist here). But even if you're not fond of Georgian Architecture the text raised many interesting points on the future of Modern Architecture and Architectural theory.

So I think that's a long winded enough book review from me… happy reading!

I think anyone that has renovated, built or decorated a house will understand that the entire act of doing so involves much patience. Things take time and the saying "Rome wasn't built in a day" is pretty apt, even if your ambitions do not extend to a Rome- like scale of construction.

Little finishing touches are gradually dribbling into my house, in some cases things I ordered a very, very long time ago and have been patiently waiting upon. I was very excited to finally receive a box of light fittings and lamps from Circa Lighting in the US. I ordered these lights back in November last year, so it's been quite a process. Two were back ordered, which delayed the entire shipment, and then I elected to have them sent by Sea, as air freight more than doubled the cost of the actual light fittings. After the backward and forward between the Customs agent, paying duty and GST and then waiting for the freight to Adelaide (they landed in Brisbane), finally on Thursday they arrived. There are 10 light fittings, but like almost anything this wasn't just a case of unpacking and putting them out - there is much tweaking involved, so it's going to be a few weeks until they're all properly in their homes.

Two of the lights were these buffet lamps, which go in our dining area. I needed something slender here so that the painting wouldn't be blocked (The painting is called "The Art of Patience", so was an apt title for this blog post), and wanted something to add more light to the sideboard table top for when I serve meals off it. These striated and gilded metal lamps work really well here with their little rectangular shades.

The biggest batch of light fittings go into the library/ sitting room. One is a bracelet lamp in gilded metal for the drinks table. It echoes the squiggles in the curtains well, and gives a good contemporary feel to offset the more traditional aspects of this room.

The other light fitting goes on the Regency card table under the painting, and here you can see where a tweak is needed - the painting has to move up higher so that the light doesn't block it (this wasn't a surprise -I had already known this would be the case). Later this week I will be receiving the two chairs I ordered in the fabric I showed a couple of blog posts ago, so I'll wait until they're in position and then rehang the painting so it all balances well. This light fitting is more traditional in feel, but I felt this would work better with the chairs that are coming as they are more modern with the fabric choice. It's all a bit of a balancing act.

The next four light fittings are the picture lights that are going in the centre of each of the bays of the bookcase to shine down over the books. I'm now waiting on my electrician for this - unfortunately it's going to be a couple of weeks until he's able to get here. No matter, while I would have liked this done straight away, I do have to (still) put in the metal grilles at the base cupboard of the shelves, and fix the knobs on as well… and finish styling the bookcase. So I can get on with all of that in the meantime.

So this room is almost at a point where I'd call it finished. My cushions are still to arrive for the armchairs (they've taken a backseat with my cushion lady as I asked her to complete client jobs as a priority), and I'm yet to buy a bigger mirror for over the fireplace, but it's pretty much complete.

The other two lamps are for our bedside tables, and require artwork to move up as well, and also to have new shades made - the ones that came with the lamp are very creamy/pink and don't work well with the more linen cream colour of our fabrics in that room. I'll show pics once it's all sorted.

The other thing that was exciting was that the rug I ordered for our casual living area back in February arrived - this is a photo of it on the day I rolled it out and before the furniture had been properly placed. It's from The Rug Establishment, and is a spotty/ wavy design. I wanted to break up the strict geometry in this space - too many squares. It also introduces a little colour in an otherwise neutral room. In real life (as opposed to my terrible photographs) it's a little more subtle in colour than this appears in the photos. I'm getting on with finishing this area off now - there are eventually going to be two more armchairs to complete the seating, and I have to commit to a few lamps and sort out the final resting place for the tv as well.

Aside from those things around the house, life has been busy - hence no blog posts. There have been two birthdays for my two youngest who have turned 5 and 7.

One very large party, one small family afternoon tea, the Royal Flying Doctor's Wings for Life ball (I help to organise this on the Volunteer Committee with 4 others each year)

my ball updo - was going for a 60's feel

I've been busy with work, and we've had a minor flood. Mr AV's study flooded after the new sump pump in the light well failed on a night we had half our monthly rainfall - it has been very wet in Adelaide this Autumn. Carpet had to be ripped up and disposed of, blowers put on the slab and general chaos for a week and a half with bits of his furniture upstairs until it's all sorted with the new replacement carpet going down yesterday. We were lucky that no furniture, electrical etc was ruined and the damage was fairly minor.

rain rain go away…

This weekend is deliberately quiet - I've spent most of today in the garden tidying up weeding/ cutting things back until the rain has driven me inside and I will try to do the same tomorrow by moving some roses to the back garden from the front - the front garden is about to have a few changes made to it. Tonight we will have pizza and board games with the kids in front of the fire… a quiet domestic weekend. Bliss!

Hope you're enjoying your weekend too.

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Online reviews can be both good and bad. I know that when ordering clothes online, the reviews can be very beneficial - other customers telling you that the sizing is out, or that the fabric feels cheap can be very helpful when making a decision on whether to go to the effort of ordering online. J Crew in the US, for example, weathered the storm of consumer protest over their lack of online review for many years up until fairly recently. Certainly I know that I avoided ordering anything from them for a few years as their vanity sizing saw me apparently shrinking on a seasonal basis, something that made me hesitant to order anything as it would most likely be too big compared to the same size the previous season. And contrary to whatever J Crew seem to think, I am not stupid enough to believe I've miraculously lost weight and shrunk numerous dress sizes, so the point of vanity sizing seems to be lost on me…

However, sometimes online reviews are not helpful, at all. I was just looking at ordering lamps online from overseas, and this was fairly typical of the reviews I saw "I have just got the lamps and they look good, but I haven't set them up yet to see if they work". Or this one "I really love these lamps and can't wait for them to arrive!". Well, thanks for the excellent review… very handy that you've had exactly the same amount of experience with these lamps as I have (i.e. you've not actually seen them in the flesh, plugged them in to see if they work etc etc).

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Trip advisor is an obvious pitfall and it is the first place anyone travelling will go to check their future hotel's reviews. I hate to say it as it is an obvious prejudice, but if a reviewer writes with poor grammar, a lack of punctuation and/or text speak I will most likely discount any negative review posted. I will also generally discount any negative rant from someone talking about how this was a "special" occasion and that they asked for "special" things to be done for their arrival and were then outraged when said special things were not done and they were not treated with the special reverence that they believed their 3rd wedding anniversary deserved. Sure, I agree that it would be nice if these special things occurred as you'd requested, but if you've taken a base level room at a large resort I won't blame the staff for not attending to the many special requests you've put in.

Hayman Island

And then, I fell down the rabbit hole of reviews - Amazon.com. I have been aware of the infamous Playmobil (kid's German made role- play toy) reviews...see here for the Playmobil Security Check Point reviews on Amazon, it's a cult collectable (as reflected by its exorbitant pricing). And if you're interested in seeing what the 17 most inappropriate Playmobil sets are then read here for a good laugh.

But I found instead these "Bic Cristal For Her" pens reviewed which proved that the marketing team at BIC are geniuses…

and then Amazon recommended that other buyers of the Bic Cristal For Her pens also bought the Hutzler 571 Banana Slicer, which also had hilarious reviews….

and finally after reviewing the banana slicer, Amazon recommended this to me, the reviews of which had me in stitches, and after which I decided I wouldn't see what else Amazon suggested I should purchase...

Enjoy the weekend!

I was thinking about the best things I did in our new extension over the weekend and thought it might make a good blog post… I tried to keep to 5, but a sixth snuck in. Really there are probably another 10 more I could list, but in the interests of keeping it short(ish) here are the top 6 things I'm so happy I included/ did in our renovation in no particular order:

1. Underfloor heating
You feel warmer if your feet are warm, and underfloor heating put heats at human level, rather than trying to force it down from the ceiling as ducted air does (hot air rises and all…). We have hydronic heating in the house (water moving through tubes in the slab heated by a boiler unit), and putting it in the concrete slab was one of the best decisions we made - no draughts, no movement of dust, constant comfortable temperature that is economical to run.

2. Hanging Laundry maid
Using the principle of hot air rising as you winch the line up to ceiling height, I can dry a large load of washing overnight on this. Saves energy, and I avoid having mobile drying racks all through the house to trip over. I also like being able to hang it up late at night without having to go outside to the outside line and also being able to dry something overnight in winter that I might need the next day (late night school uniform washing…). Cheap, but effective, saves wear and tear on your clothes from a dryer, and makes my life easier.

3. Two dishwashers
This also goes into the making my life easier category. It seemed extravagant when I first considered it for the kitchen, but it's one of the best decisions I made (I had many people suggest this to me when planning the kitchen). I never have dishes out waiting for the dishwasher to finish, and it's particularly handy when entertaining and you have a lot of plates. I was watching a Real Housewives of Melbourne episode recently (yes, I occasionally watch trash tv!) and Chyka (a caterer) said that some houses in Melbourne they go into now have 4 dishwashers - 2 in the butler's pantry, 2 in the kitchen so that caterers can do loads of dishes as they go for big parties.

view of the kitchen when sitting at the dining table - not a lot to see

4. Separated kitchen
This was a controversial component of the design and something my husband and I had many terse discussions about - open plan living is a non negotiable in Australia, so it was hard to get it over the line. I love not being able to see the mess in the kitchen when eating in the dining area. On Saturday night we had 8 friends over for dinner, and the kitchen was in a pretty chaotic state. No one could see it, including me.

5. Linoleum floors
A decision made based on budget cuts (you can read about it here), it turned out to be the silver lining. I love these floors so much - easy to clean, comfortable underfoot, perfect for hard wearing family living, and they look so good. They are the perfect neutral backdrop. Plus they're dirt cheap.

6. Natural Light from multiple directions in the living areas
This is something I've written a little about before on this blog post, but having natural light coming from multiple directions makes for a great living space - as detailed in the Architects unofficial bible A Pattern Language. The changing light through the day moving through the space makes for a much more dynamic living environment. Highlight windows in the sitting area add to the experience - in the living area the light comes from North, South, East and West. The children's playroom also has East and West windows which gives the room a similar feel.

Some of these things are expensive (like the ceiling lantern in the Living area), others are cheap (laundry maid and flooring) but they all highlight what makes life easier or more enjoyable in the new extension.

Long term blog readers will have seen it all before - I'm afraid there are no cupboards full of different china patterns in my house. As I've previously explained I was given (excellent) advice by my Aunt 15 years ago when I was registering for my wedding at David Jones. She encouraged me to choose a very nice everyday set of china that could be dressed up for formal dining, but that was dishwasher friendly and that I could also have the pleasure of using every day. Rather than splitting purchases of china between two different sets and the subsequent gaps that this would cause in complete settings, I was fortunate that family and friends combined to purchase a large and complete dinner set of Villeroy and Boch's Tipo Blue (since discontinued). It's not the most exciting China (you can see it at the end of the post, and also on the bread and butter plates above) - I wanted something with longevity, so no pattern. But the quality is lovely, it has a subtle self-dot on the rim, and the blue stripe around the edge went with a lot of the blue things that I have in my kitchen (le Creuset, kitchen aid mixer etc… I am a blue person from way back).

So, that said, after 15 years it is looking slightly worn (not bad enough to get rid of it), and of course I suffer boredom from the whole thing as I've been dining off it for so long. So, I decided to apply the same principles I apply to my wardrobe to the China. I've accessorised. Long term blog readers will also know that I'm a lover of Isis Ceramics (one of my very first blog posts was on Isis), and I was excited to see that Isis Ceramics collaborated with Juliska to produce a range called Country Estate. Isis is very expensive (hand made), so a complete dinner setting is a total luxury. The Juliska collaboration is a good alternative - the same feel of Isis, but it's less expensive, dishwasher safe and easily available via Saks in the US with free shipping. I purchased 8 chargers (there were supposed to be 10 but two were broken in transit - Saks refunded me). A charger, for Australian readers, seems to me to be an American invention (I'm not aware of it being used elsewhere in the world commonly). Essentially it is a platter sized plate, and is used instead of a place mat. You set entree and main plates directly on top of it, and then it is removed with the main plate for dessert. At any rate, I decided it was a relatively inexpensive way of breathing interest and new life into my existing and aged V & B set without purchasing a whole other set of china.

So, two weekends ago we had 7 friends over for dinner, and I set the table with all the nice things - white linen tablecloth and napkins with a simple hemstitch detail, the antique sterling silver cutlery, the new Juliska "Country Estate" chargers, Blue (also ancient wedding gift) Villery & Boch water glasses, and all the Waterford Crystal I purchased very cheaply at a couple of local estate Auctions last year. I put out some candles and scattered a few olive branch prunings down the middle and it was done - there is no room for a flower arrangement as the table is too narrow.

I also decided to buy a set of place card holders recently. This does seem very formal, but I find that the moment where you ask everyone to come to the table, and there is a crowd - they all freeze and wait for you to tell them where to sit which holds things up unnecessarily… I'm usually trying to get plates out at that point, and Mr AV is pouring wine. People like being told where to sit rather than shuffling around awkwardly trying to work it out themselves so I've been on the lookout for a place card holder for a while. These little silver watering cans were perfect. They're from a collection by Bunny Williams for Ballard Design in the US (currently heavily reduced). Being a gardener and with the design on the chargers these were perfect.

Dinner was fun - I did a simple menu with a loose Italian theme - Tuscan white bean soup, Veal Osso Bucco on Risotto alla Milanese with a couple of different sides, and Lemon & Lime Tart for desert. Main and dessert were Jamie Oliver recipes - I do like his recipes as they always work. The tart was from the first cookbook he put out, the Osso Bucco and Risotto from his latest (Comfort Food). All done in advance (aside from the risotto) which meant I spent minimal time in the kitchen.

usual table setting for a family dinner - silvery jug just seen is Georg Jensen Pumpkin water jug, everyday stainless cutlery and napkins, everyday water glasses from Market Import

The other dinner setting improve I've made recently concerns every day dining. Like most small children mine make a mess, and a wipe clean placemat is essential. All the kid ones I've purchased have gradually had the designs scrubbed off them, so they look quite tatty. Additionally as we dine as a family so often I really wanted something that could be used for either Adult or child for a nicely cohesive table setting. The ones we had been using were round rattan, which tended to get bits of food stuck in the rattan and they were looking tatty as well after around 6 years of use. Bunny Williams again to the rescue - while purchasing the Watering cans, I thought I'd also try out these placemats that were designed for indoors/ outdoors and were supposed to be child friendly. These things are genius! They are really large, which is perfect for catching mess from kids, but it also means they easily accommodate plate, cutlery, glass and napkin without moving any of those things onto the table surface. They're woven out of a thick tape that seems pretty much indestructible, and I can give them a good scrub in the kitchen sink if they've got pasta sauce or weetbix stuck on them and it all comes out. My only complaint is the lack of colour option - there's a blue/ white or orange/white. Bunny needs to do a neutral. I'm planning to use these for outdoor dining as well in Summer, but for everyday dining they are perfect indoors too. Highly recommend them.

a little bit more dressed up for casual dining

Apologies for the photo quality at the top of the page - I snapped them just as everyone was starting to arrive, so used the iPhone...

I'm often asked if I'm an avid watcher of TV home renovation/ design programs. The short answer is not really. The longer answer takes a lot longer to explain.

Here in Australia we've just finished another series of "The Block", which is the top rating home renovation show here. For overseas readers, the show's premise is that there are 4 nearly identical properties - a small apartment block, or small terrace houses in a row or on the same street. Couples (brothers/ sisters/ married/ unmarried/ friends etc) renovate one room a week which are judged by three judges in which the 'winner' of that weeks room reveal is given extra money to spend on their renovation. At the end of the series the properties are all auctioned, and the winner is the person who receives the best price on the day. The show has been running (with a long break in the middle) for around 11 years.

I haven't watched it much in recent years, despite two properties being located around the corner from my old house in Melbourne. I can remember those properties selling - some 3 years before the shows went to air.

The reason why I don't much like this show, and other shows like it, is that I think it has encouraged a really unpleasant side to Australian design and real estate. Firstly the show should not be viewed as a design show - it's a real estate flipping game show. The contestants are all very concerned about what "The Market" wants (this is constantly invoked by contestants, hosts and judges) so that they can maximise the money they get at the Auction. This is reinforced by the three judges who award points each week (giving the contestants more money to spend on their project). One week in the series last year one couple were told to go back to their Real Estate agent and talk to them about what "The Market" wants as they just weren't getting the design right. I'd also add that the judges are not eminent designers in the field of Architecture or Interior Architecture - there is a Decorator, the Editor of one of Australia's top Interiors magazines, and a TV personality/ Decorator who features on "Selling Houses Australia" (another show where they do up properties that are unsellable to finally achieve a sale). These are all disciplines that deal with the surface, rather than the substance behind it.

And the problem with focussing solely on what is "saleable", and what photographs or films well is that it follows all those trends that won't necessarily have longevity, often at the expense of good design. In these types of programs the Design is purely driven by re-sale, rather than good design, which tailors to an individuals circumstances and needs.

The other major problem I have with The Block (and other shows like it), is that it gives an unrealistic idea of how much it actually costs to renovate a property in Australia. The contestants last year were reminded that the Rules stated they "were to pay a minimum of $47/ hour for their tradespeople, and not to negotiate more than a 50% discount on goods". I have never met tradesmen/ women who will work for that sort of money in a city like Melbourne. Australia has very, very high labour costs for building. Crane drivers were earning $150,000 a year back when I was working on large construction sites in 2001. You'd be hard pressed to find even a newly minted labourer to work for that sort of rate, let alone a specialist tradesperson, such as an Electrician or Plumber. As for a 50% trade discount on goods - I've only managed that when I went to a (public) one- off warehouse sale. Trade discounts are nowhere near as generous on items like appliances, sanitary ware, taps or cabinetry hardware etc. So when these contestants are filmed saying things like "we only have $2000 to do our terrace" you should more than double it if you want what it would actually cost someone at home with normal resources to do it.

Before any of the teams set foot on the property, they have had all the Council development approvals go through, which has involved Architects, Engineers and other specialists consultants (Heritage or town planning) and all the fees that they command - none of this is ever mentioned or disclosed in their total "budget" that they spent on renovating the properties.

The unrealistic time lines displayed are laughable. A "room reveal" of an ensuite bathroom for each contestant had one couple in the last series getting a very large custom mirror installed on the morning of a public holiday with about 8 hours notice. The glazier worked overnight to cut it to size. If only this happens in the real world... Another week I heard the contestants sigh and say, "big week next week, we have to do the kitchen". Stone bench tops are not cut and installed in a week in the real world (the cupboards have to be completely in, a template cut and then it goes off to the stone yard to be cut to size before being brought onto site and installed). Nor can you get custom cabinetry measured up at the start of the week and installed 4 days later. Appliances usually take several days to arrive and be installed if you choose only what is in stock, and you need your appliances already selected and delivered to your cabinet maker for cupboards to be made around them at any rate.

So the main problem with all of this is that, sure, people realise this is entertainment TV, but there is still a large percentage that think they could do this at home too and in a not too dissimilar time frame. And they can't. In the area we used to live in in Melbourne (Albert Park), I would see the entry level single fronted cottages selling for a premium. They were the places that were completely run down. The purchasers were usually a young couple, who would live there for 2 years. In that time they'd do the place up a bit with a facelift (white paint throughout, polish the old floor boards), hire an Architect and get some development plans through the council to do a big gut and renovation (this part alone used to take around 6 months with the local council). They they'd cost it up with a builder once the approvals had gone through, find out it was going to cost them more than it would be worth once finished and sold, and usually they'd then sell it unrenovated…. to the next couple who would do the same thing. I saw several properties pass through 3 buyers in the time we lived there, ultimately never being renovated with the big extension as it cost too much and they'd paid too much to start with to ever be able to recoup their costs.

It is very difficult to make (genuine) money in residential property in Australia unless you have a way of leveraging your skills and experience - you're a Designer/ Tradesperson who can use their own time and skill in the project and/ or you have really good trade contacts so can get product a lot cheaper than a normal customer. A lot of people think they make money in property, but often it is just normal market rise if you take out costs (insurance, interest, stamp duty etc).

So I'm not hugely fond of TV property flipping entertainment shows that masquerade as Design/ renovation shows. They give a completely unrealistic idea of how much things actually cost and how long it takes to deliver completed rooms, they drive design toward what "The Market" wants (things that Agents can write in a short paragraph that sound impressive "Miele Kitchen/ Polished Boards/ Full Home Automation" etc), and they encourage the cult of what looks impressive in a photograph having been styled to death, rather than the practicalities of how we live. They are also shameless in their tie in deals with large retailers who place product in the show, and with the station that runs the program themselves (Australia's Channel 9) who have their own online shop where you can purchase items used for prop styling in the show.

Sigh. It frustrates me no end… but there is the beacon of hope - the highly credible Kevin McCloud of Grand Designs UK who has been doing his trick-free show for around 15 years now. His thoughtful commentary on design/ budget/ construction following real life renovation or new build homes is in a league of its own and much more representational of what renovating a property looks like. Give me that over the silly games added for content filler, the drawn out sagas of the personal lives of the contestants and the "fast fashion" decorating that is packaged up for mass entertainment in the guise of being Good Design.

All images via Channel Nines "Block Shop"

Hello! I haven't abandoned the blog completely, but we've had three weeks of school holidays, and then I spent two weeks trying to catch up with work/ family/ generally recover so things have been a little quiet on here. But I thought I'd write a very generalist blog post about all sorts of random things I've found/ been enjoying in the past few months.

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This week, while googling Kit Kemp fabric images for a client project I'm working on, I came across another collaboration she's done. Kit Kemp, for those of you unaware of whom I speak, is a celebrated Designer/ Hotelier of the Firmdale group of hotels - a variety of boutique hotel properties in London and now New York with a very singular aesthetic.

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Kemp is renowned for using a very eclectic mix of fabrics and objects and her Ham Yard Hotel was instagrammed to death last year when it opened (and rightly so). She has previously partnered with two fabric companies to produce ranges, one being Christopher Farr's Cloth range, the other being Chelsea Textiles.

Kit Kemp for Christopher Farr Cloth used on the Bedhead via

For those unaware of Chelsea Textiles (it is not distributed directly in Australia sadly) it plays into my love of embroidery - the range is all hand embroidered (in China and India I believe), and has a traditional Jacobean/ Georgian hand made feel to it, with a few small design ranges that they've partnered up with Interior Designers that have a more modern twist. Kemp's design is below.

"Mythical Creatures" hand embroidered cushion via

It's probable that it isn't distributed here as the market for expensive hand embroidered fabrics with an 18th Century aesthetic would be very small. But one of her designs for Chelsea Textiles is now available here in china form.

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Kit Kemp has partnered with Wedgewood to produce one of her designs "Mythical Creatures" on a Tea Service. Certainly it's an unusual pattern on china - it's not a stereotypical "pretty" pattern which I quite like for a change. Unfortunately, prices are not exactly budget on that one too, so while I may think it's a lovely tea service, It's highly unlikely to make its way into my china cupboard. Possibly her new book is a more likely addition - a second book on her signature style is due out later this year.

via Firmdale's instagram account

Changing tack, I've been very pleased with a recent addition to my wardrobe - a new black puffer jacket. It's been fairly freezing, wet and grey in Adelaide, and the AV family also had a ski trip during the school holidays so it came in handy when walking around in the village.

I searched for 2 years to replace an old (14 year old) J Crew jacket that I bought in 1999. It was a fantastic, warm jacket, but after such a long time it was definitely time to move it on. So why two years for such a utilitarian purchase? Well, unfortunately puffers are not exactly flattering on. I am not that tall, and most end up making me look like the Michelin Man as a result. A lot are made of high shine fabric too, which I didn't like due to the extra visual bulk a shiny fabric adds. Additionally, I have spent two years trying to buy one on sale… with the obvious result that the nice ones in smaller sizes sell out well before going on sale. Stalemate. So, I've been keeping an eye on the incoming Autumn/ Winter fashions overseas online, and when I found this Herno brand puffer with the hem that dips down at the back, and interesting side quilting pattern I snapped it up. Good thing too as it sold out in my size in the space of two weeks.

Herno is an Italian brand I was previously unaware of - they specialise in rain coats only (since 1948), and it has lots of interesting details. It has built in wrist warmers, a zip off hood, a funnel neck and rubber coated zips which are a nice touch. It was purchased through Matches fashion for those interested… above are the Instagram pics I put up of it. Of course it still has a Michelin Man element to it, but it's definitely not quite so pudding-y as others I tried on in the past, so I'm very happy with it.

After the purchase of the puffer, Matches fashion saw fit to send me an email with some of their new season things that apparently based on my past purchases I would be highly likely to buy. I was surprised that based on buying what I'd probably describe as "conservative basics", I apparently would be interested in this very expensive Angry Birds inspired tote bag from Fendi.

via Matches

Something has gone very wrong there with some sort of algorithm…. however while I was browsing around on the new bag offerings after I stopped laughing, I came across this Mark Cross "Grace" clutch, which is much more my style (but sadly not going to be purchased in the near future as it's kind of pricey).

Mark Cross, for those who are not familiar with this brand has been in operation in the USA since 1845 and claims to be "America's first luxury leather goods brand". It's had some pretty impressive product placement in the classic Hitchcock movie "Rear Window". In the movie Grace Kelly stays overnight with Cary Grant to investigate the murder and uses her Mark Cross bag to pull out all she needs for a sleepover.

In honour of the original, they named the slightly more petite clutch bag after her although the original, larger version is available. I love it because in this world of the big logo, it's nice to find something that is well crafted yet outwardly logo-less.

Funnily enough, while searching for the image of Grace with the Mark Cross bag I came across a quirky blog with a "Find your Classic Movie Star Style"quiz. It's fun, so try it (and let me know who you are - I'm a Grace ironically…).

In garden news I can't say I've spent a lot of time in the garden - too snowed under with work, and the weather hasn't exactly been conducive a lot of the time (rain/ wind/ freezing cold). I am definitely a fair weather gardener. But something I did last Summer has borne fruit (not in a literal sense). The hedging expert told me that with small box hedges that rather than tip prune them constantly (as is normal advice) to take the long leaders and peg them down. Eventually they will send out shoots into the ground, but they'll also produce new shoots all the way along the original branch, thus doubling or tripling your size of bush. I took a photo around 5 months ago and here it is

and one this week to show the difference - bear in mind that most of the growth has been through Autumn and Winter, so this is pretty good in my estimation (it's more than doubled in height, and is probably 3 times as wide).

End result - the bush is only marginally shorter than the ones I didn't do this to, and it's much thicker and less of that sort of vase shape that you normally battle them growing into. So I think it definitely works. It's a labour intensive thing to do to set it up, but usually putting in the hard yards early on with soil prep/ pruning sets you up well into the future, so I definitely recommend trying this.

Sadly though the weeds have been out of control, and you can see a lot in the photo above. I've become very interested in this fantastic personal flame- thrower as it burns the weeds and kills them. Environmentally friendly as it isn't a pesticide, and saves your back with the laborious hand weeding. It's perfect for areas with gravel or paving (obviously you don't want to try this on piles of combustible mulch or on total fire ban days). It's from Diggers Club and I can't wait to get my mitts on one of them - nothing better than some hard core flame throwing garden equipment in my opinion.

Finally, if you're on Instagram I thought I'd highlight a few feeds I'm enjoying following (and I'm @anadelaidevilla on there).

One of my favourite feeds is that of Jenny Rose Innes. She has exquisite taste and if you haven't been to visit her blog, go and have a look (on my side bar - the Lime Walk), but in the meantime some snippets of her feed which is full of gardens, interiors, and good things…

nicolasdepompadour is a Scottish based Interior Decorator with very classic English- Country- House- style taste.

Humphrey Munson - classic English kitchen maker (all of you Hamptons/ classic kitchen style lovers will find plenty of inspiration here)

Teggy French - she is Faux Fuchsia's doppelgänger. Seriously, it's uncanny.

seriously - twins!

Mccormick Charlie - stunning floral arrangements and views of the English countryside

Wood_Farm - Marilyn has just returned to Australia from travelling through France, and posted the most sublime photos.

a_cannata - A Melbourne based designer who posts pictures of his rather nice weekender, city pad and multiple classic Mercedes Benz (in fact, he seems to like to purchase things in multiples - check out his Gucci loafer collection)

Phew - well that ended up being a long, random catch up post. I'll try not to leave it so long next time!

my sitting room drinks table

Well, it's the weekend and I've got a celebratory drink on my mind for surviving another week of craziness.

the casual living area drinks tray

This has lead me to think about the drinks table, and it's super sized cousin, the home bar. I read last year in The Australian newspaper that home bars were again becoming big news. Apparently they are the new Sales Feature demanded by The Market in a luxury house (the home theatre has obviously infiltrated the mass market too much, as have full Miele kitchens...). Used by caterers, and often adjoining casual living and entertaining areas (such as outdoor pools) apparently Designers are being inundated with requests to make the home bar look like an upmarket boutique hotel. Mirror, chrome, marble and every liquor and spirit known to man is required to give the edge over its rather more subdued 70's parent.

Home bars back in the 70s in Australia revolved more around the fantasy of having your own pub at home with you playing the role of the publican. They tended to feature wood panelling, beer mats, bowls of nuts and a miniature keg to pull your own beers from. The new incarnation is a slightly more glossy and sophisticated take on all that, but still (to me) fairly unnecessary unless you entertain constantly or harbour a deep longing to play shop as an adult.

But the drinks table… well, that's another matter. There is nothing that says "welcome" or "relax" (or possibly "alcoholic") to me than a well curated drinks tray.

Bar carts recently become a Thing, and are now easily available in Australia through a variety of suppliers, as well as frequently being available at estate auction (called tray mobiles, and far cheaper than the brand new versions). But to be honest, I've never understood why you need wheels on it. They are generally left in a stationary position somewhere, so I'm more in favour of a decent sized tray with the essentials on it. A few bottles of your favourite tipple, mixers, ice bucket and glasses, some citrus and you have a welcoming drinks tray. If you want to fancy it up with attractive stripey prop straws, then by all means go for it.

I have two drinks trays in my house - one on the side board in our dining area (a part of the casual living zone). This is used fairly frequently as we are generally in this area. The other drinks tray is in the library/ sitting room. It's smaller and is less frequently used. At some point we will have to do away with the permanent drinks tray as our children become teenagers, and we start keeping everything alcoholic in the lockable cellar. Mr AV and I both have vivid memories of sneaking things out of our parent's cellars, either when underaged, or after than in student enforced poverty to take to a party.

Two incidences in my family spring to mind. The first was when my parents decided to have a Gin and Tonic. It was a hot day, so my Father fetched the half full bottle of chilled gin from the cellar fridge rather than using the bottle on the sideboard. He spent some time putting it together and presented one to my mother who sipped it and asked him if he'd remembered to put the Gin in. Yes he had, he assured her. She sipped it again and said she couldn't taste it. So Dad poured some more in. Same result. At this point my younger sister and I, who were sitting on the sofas nearby started whispering to each other "have you been drinking the Gin?" Yes, it turned out we both had (and possibly my older sister too). We used to decant it out of the bottle then top it back up with water to the same level….

The second instance occurred on Christmas Day. As per family tradition the pudding was to be lit up with flaming Brandy. Except that Dad hadn't checked how much Brandy he had. There was only a few drops left. So he improvised. He pulled out the full bottle of Vodka a patient had given him around 10 years before as a substitute. My parents never drank Vodka, so it was full. He poured it liberally all over the pudding, my sisters and I held our breath, he lit a match and we all watched the match fizzle. Another match, still no flame. The pudding would just not light. The extended family was surprised, Dad confused. How could it not flame? Well, unfortunately that was another bottle my sisters and I had gradually diluted with water over the years. Essentially Dad had poured water over the Christmas pudding. It was a soggy, water logged pudding that year.

So for the time being I'll enjoy my drinks tables in all their welcoming glory before the bottles are stashed in the cellar and only brought out with keyed access.

Enjoy the weekend!

more images of drinks trays via Pinterest

The Islington Hotel's dining Conservatory

I've just got back from a trip to Hobart, Tasmania to meet up with my friends Romy, Faux Fuchsia and blog commenter Pammie. For those of my readers unsure where Tasmania is, it's the island at the bottom of the map of Australia, and Hobart is the Southernmost city in Australia.

The Islington's Yellow sitting room

It was freezing and even snowed while we were there. It felt very English to me for a few reasons. Firstly we had to walk through a door at the airport that said "International Arrivals". I'm not sure Tasmania has officially Seceded from the mainland yet, but all the little black faced sheep in fields, rolling green hills, misty rain and Georgian style Architecture of the original Colonial era buildings combined to give a very English feel.

Mona's bunker like buildings overlooking the Derwent

We started our trip at MONA - the Museum of Old and New Art. It's one Billionaire's collection centring on the themes of life, death and sex. At one point I thought we'd entered Dante's fifth circle of Hell as we had to keep doubling back through a room with an installation of televisions with people screaming as performance art. We zipped through it all fairly fast, especially the infamous poo machine (the smell was awful), but I highly recommend the food in the cafe- we all had a great lunch.

The Fat Porsche - a message about overconsumption.

Later that night we had dinner at Franklin, recently anointed Hottest New Restaurant in Australia by Gourmet Traveller magazine and also The Australian newspaper food critics. If you like spending time in spartan concrete warehouses sitting on stools, and all the fun of deciphering menus with dishes containing three words ("nettles, grains, Sumac" etc) then this is the restaurant for you. It was full to the brim on Friday night with unhappy hipsters morosely eating Iceberg lettuce sprinkled with seaweed.

The Agrarian Kitchen cooking school before chaos started

Thankfully Tasmania has a very vibrant food scene, and our other dining experiences were fabulous. Every street seemed to have cool little hole in the wall cafes selling excellent coffee and cakes made on premises, and one of the purposes of our trip was to attend a cooking day at The Agrarian Cooking School with the theme of Vintage Baking. Faux Fuchsia has already done a post on it, so you can live the magic there.

But it was akin to being in an episode of The Great British Bakeoff. We baked our little fingers to the bone Vintage Style. So much so that I'm pretty sure Faux Fuchsia (who was standing next to me) was about to hit me over the head with a vintage style rolling pin at one point as I morphed into one of those annoying people that moan about how much easier it would all be if I just had my Thermomix with me. But we turned out an impressive array of Suet and lard based pastry goods. Delicious! An under-utilised ingredient these days.

Where we ate lunch - pastries and cakes we'd baked

We spent that night lying fatly around in front of the fire in the red sitting room at the Islington Hotel where we stayed chatting about houses, books, art, antiques and gardening. It's such a beautiful hotel, it's very cosy with lots of open fireplaces, books, art and china and feels like you're staying in someone's really nice home.

A spot of Cartier China in the Dining Room

Speaking of nice homes we spent some time also camped out at our hostess Romy's house, which is divine. Full of colour and art and books and so personal and eclectic. Lots of mementos of family travels and special occasions, it's all I love in a house.

corner of Romy's Dining room with Designers Guild covered velvet bench seat and coloured wine glasses

Romy's Boathouse

Sunday saw us eating lunch at Smolt, which was excellent, browsing bookshops and wandering around Salamanca Place which is the old wharf area of Hobart. Romy also took us to her boat shed, which is in a most lovely, tranquil little spot and drove us around and around Hobart which curiously reminds me of Sydney. Perhaps it's all the little one way curvy streets, sandstone walls and colonial era Architecture? Plus the water is always turning up around a corner as you enter another little bay.

Salamanca Place

Back to Adelaide with a thump late last night. It was such a fun weekend escape but too short! I can't wait to get back there again. Lastly, we always exchange little presents on our yearly catch ups, and I was so pleased with these I thought I'd mention them - Project Ten chiller bags that come in a bunch of fun patterns. I like giving useful presents and these are perfect for the supermarket shopping, picnics or transporting things to lunches or dinners (they also make different sized shoppers, totes or zip wallets that match too). So I bought one that matches with each of my three Hobart bakers in arms.

I'll leave it out to you to work out who matches up with which one! Hope you had a good weekend too.

I often write blog posts about things I get a lot of emails about, and one thing I've received a few emails about, and that I've spoken to people quite a bit about in real life as well, is where I would recommend to study Interior Design or Decoration and then the specifics about a general career change to Design.

I have wanted to be a Designer of some sort from about the age of 9. I used to frequently rearrange the furniture in my bedroom from the time I was about 8 years old, draping table cloths on the bed, moving around my pictures… I saved up for 2 years to buy my own dollhouse, and I used to love visiting one of my Aunts who would buy in all the overseas design magazines (so expensive back then!) and I'd spend all my time whilst at her house curled up on her sofa reading them obsessively.

My parents wanted me to channel my interest in Interiors into something they viewed as a more substantial level of study, and so I completed a 5 year Bachelor of Architecture degree after finishing school. I didn't enjoy it. Architecture consistently has one of the poorest student satisfaction results across all University degrees in Australia. It's a long course of endurance. But I got through it, as I'd made a deal with my parents that I could then study Interior Design at The Inchbald School of Design in London - a course highly regarded in the design industry that had turned out many of the designers whose work I admired in English House and Garden magazine (my favourite Interiors magazine).

Of course there are a variety of options available to study Interior Design or Decoration in Australia. The thing that interested me, and that sent me to London, was not in completing another 3 years of a Bachelor of Interior Design at University (and coming out with no knowledge of fabrics/ wallpapers and all the things deemed 'fluffy' - Interior Architecture at University has quite a commercial slant as this is where most end up working) but in expanding my wings in a design sense and in finding a point of difference from all the hundreds of other University graduates finishing University at a time when jobs in Architecture were incredibly scarce. Back then with no Internet, Australia was truly at the bottom of the world and ideas from overseas would take literally years to filter down here. We were at the mercy of what was brought into the country by trade agents, and the insular nature of being here meant that design was very skewed toward a certain look.

So I travelled to London, studied Interior Design and Decoration at a private design school and worked for some time as an Interior Design slave (which I wrote a little bit about here). It was a fantastic, formative experience for a design mad girl from Adelaide, and I think it's definitely influenced the way I design and opened my eyes to the possibilities that are out there. No where in Adelaide (or Sydney at that time) would you find lacquered or fabric upholstered walls, cedar lined drawers in a walk in dressing room, be lining curtains in hundreds of metres of a Pierre Frey check so that the curtains looked attractive from outside the house, specify hand appliquéd borders on curtains or chinoiserie wallpaper painted by hand that was made specially to fit a room's doors and windows…and all the other myriad things that I saw being done while I worked in Interiors in London. While these things are not something I will necessarily do in my work now (few have the budget - these were projects for multi-multi millionaires), they spin off other ideas in my head that can be applied in other ways. They also left me with a life long aversion to trend driven design, which is so prevalent at the moment, and instead to appreciate an underlying quality of design and materials which will last beyond a 3 year cycle.

But of course I was a lot younger then than I am now. When people have asked me about a change career into Interior Design I always suggest looking to London to the two big private design schools there - The Inchbald School of Design and KLC, which are both very highly regarded in the industry. If you can go in person to one of their courses, then so much the better. But both now offer online courses, accredited by Universities in the UK, in a range of design subjects and courses. They are rigorous and well thought through, and will definitely give a good grounding in design on which to build a career as well as teaching the business of design (running actual projects). For people living in a geographically vast country like Australia, and for people unable to access a design school locally due to not living in Sydney or Melbourne, or not wanting to study a 4 year Bachelor of Interior Architecture, or those looking to still work while retraining, and for those looking for world class teaching...then this is the perfect solution.

I cannot emphasise how much I loved my course all those years ago - the teachers were all experts in their field, and we'd regularly have talks from world-class London based designers. We were taken on guided tours of the V&A museum with an Oxford educated expert in decorative design. We visited stately homes, fabric showrooms, and trade shows. All things that expand your horizons in a design sense. Now to keep up a world view on design I spend a lot of time looking at International and local design magazines, reading books, visiting exhibitions and attending talks when I'm able to, and using online resources such as virtual gallery tours.

My trip to Hobart over the weekend, the subject of my last post, was a long talk fest about houses - particularly so as Romy, our Hobart hostess, has a beautiful and eclectic home and clearly a good eye for design. Earlier this year Romy decided to retrain as an Interior Designer, and has signed up for the KLC course online - study options being particularly limited in Tasmania. Romy has just restarted her blog - now called A House in Hobart - and has promised to blog about her design course and all the beautiful houses in Hobart near her home. So if you're interested in following along with her on her on this process then drop by her blog and say hello.

All images via Pinterest

As it's Spring, my thoughts have increasingly been on the garden, and gardening in general. Early this year I contacted my landscape designer as a redesign of the front garden was required (this had not been designed by her, but rather by me). The front garden was installed only 4 years ago, however a number of problems meant that a redesign was in order.

The sick magnolia tree, stunted hedge to the right.

Firstly, we have as a central focal point by the front path a dying Magnolia tree. It didn't like the construction of the new front fence and has sulked by dying back year on year. Branches show disease and rot, and despite a lot of TLC on my part, it was obvious after nursing it along for the past 4 years that it was time to farewell it as it was a shadow of its previous magnificence.

The last of the magnolias

Secondly was the fact that the first landscaper that did the initial landscaping works did not prepare the soil properly. I had at the time emphasised the importance of the soil preparation - with all the construction works of the veranda and new boundary walls the soil was very compacted from earthworks. However I was unable to supervise the landscaping works adequately - at the time my mother was very ill in hospital for 6 weeks, and I was spending my days with her. It all looked fine at the end of the job, and the plants initially flourished, but that all stalled a year later when the compacted soil in one section of the garden was alternatively a bog in Winter or bone dry in Summer, and I would unearth very large rocks buried 30cm below the soil level that had not been removed from the construction of the wall from the other end of the garden - I can remember on one afternoon alone I dug up 13 30-40cm wide rocks while trying to plant roses. The hedge along the front fence also grew very strangely - one side is flourishing, and the other is half the size.

The third issue was to correct a rookie error on my part. Gardens are no different in many ways to Architecture, and scale is important. While I know how to do this successfully in buildings, in the garden I doubted what I'd read (garden beds should be a minimum of 2m wide, and ideally at least 3m) and instinctively made the common mistake of trying to maximise the feeling of space in what is a very narrow front garden by making the garden beds narrow and the lawn part as large as possible. It just doesn't look right - the garden feels like it's shrinking up at the sides and it emphasises the narrowness of the garden as a result.

So, the shorter version is that it's all coming out, and the new garden will have no lawn (no longer needed as we have a fully renovated back garden and living area for the children to play on), and will instead be almost entirely garden, with some gravel to soften the margins between veranda, front path and plants. Thank goodness I did in fact scale the front path well - it is very wide, which works well with the scale of the house and so it will not be changing.

Bronte House, Sydney. Photo via Bumble at Home blog

Bronte House, Sydney. photo via Bumble at Home blog

"Possumwood" garden designed by Miles Baldwin

The style for the front garden is that of an early colonial Australian garden - I want it to look original to the house. In essence this means that it will rely on interesting plant combinations, rather than geometry (a formal garden with hedging) for interest. Colonial gardens were largely experimental - finding out what would grow in the Australian climate from plants collected from all over the world, and with a combination of plantings that emphasised textural contrast (grasses/ sedums/ meditteranean palms/ salvias) and that required little water.... It won't be a 'dry' garden as such, but it will have a good mix of grey/green leafed plants and will rely on interesting planting combinations, such as my inspiration garden images above. All the existing plants in the garden will be reused (they will be lifted out so that the soil can be adequately prepared first), and the focal point on one side will be a Victorian style fountain.

Cast Iron fountain circa 1890 at my Dad's house. (blurred out) photo of my children by Shona Henderson

I have searched high and low for a decent fountain - there is one main style of reproduction fountain available in Adelaide and it is a two tiered fountain with either swans or dolphins at the base. I wanted something different - so I've found instead a good selection from a foundry in Castlemaine, Victoria and have chosen a bronze Acanthus leaf fountain (not quite on the scale of my Dad's fountain!).

Billman's Foundry Acanthus leaf fountain

Acanthus leaves were a motif commonly used in Classical Architecture, and ferns, palms and Acanthus leaf motifs were popular during the Victorian era, so I feel it will suit my house style and the overall style of the garden. Then there was the pond part. I didn't want it to go into a new build pond with stone edging. I wanted it to go into a cast iron Victorian style pond surround, similar to my Dad's original fountain located in his garden in the photo above. Well, no one makes them anymore. Apparently you'd need a crane to get one into your garden at any rate… but I did manage to find a reproduction fibreglass pond surround that will look the goods. The fibreglass is high quality, so bears no resemblance to the cheap pebbled ponds you might find at the local garden centre, and it's still a 3 man lift, so it's solid and substantial enough that I think it will work well. It also came from Castlemaine.

So, with those plans in place I'm just waiting on the landscapers to arrive, which will be Monday. In readiness they came and sprayed off the lawn to kill it. However this was done a little prematurely in my opinion - we have been looking at this scene for the past 10 weeks. I can't even begin to tell you how much I am desperately wanting the yellow grass to be gone. It's a very depressing entry at the moment to the house.

In other parts of the garden however things are flourishing. I've put in a lot of hard yards over the past couple of months fertilising, weeding and pruning in readiness for Spring - not the glamorous part of gardening that's for sure. I've had a few questions about the hedging in the side garden and how I've gone about with this radically different method of growing a thick hedge (advice given to me by my hedging man).

Rather than tip pruning and getting the vase shaped bush that is common, he suggests pegging or tying down any long leaders you get to spread out the footprint of the bush. You then get new shoots out of the horizontally tied down branches and the bush is much thicker as a result. I've used galvanised irrigation pegs that I bought from the hardware store. You can air peg the branches if necessary (so that you don't snap the branch if it is more brittle by pushing it right onto the ground), and after around 3 months the branch has changed its direction of growth enough that you can remove the pegs and reuse them elsewhere. Alternatively you can tie branches from plant to plant together with something flexible (I use old stockings for this). While overall the hedges that I've done this to are shorter than the ones I haven't, they are only marginally so, and by contrast are double the footprint of the normally grown type. I highly recommend this method, and I'm now doing it to all the bushes. It's also being done along the front fence hedge (particularly the side growing poorly) to help thicken it up.

If you look almost directly at the centre of the image you'll see the peg holding the branch down

Kind of flattened out into the gaps

Back corner of the garden

The other thing my hedging man did was to test the ph of the soil. I've actually never done this before, but it's very alkaline, so we need to add Acid to bring it back to a neutral Ph. Not having neutral ph means that the plants can't take up nutrients adequately and it stunts their growth and makes them susceptible to disease. So Mr AV and I have spent a lot of time lugging around elemental sulphur and digging it into the soil to correct it. It's not been a lot of fun. Actually, the day we did that I was pretty grumpy….But the back garden is rewarding us - the crabapples are in full flight, the forest pansy is in blossom and all the other trees have leafed up nicely. I've planted out a lot of roses around the bocce court, some of which I've successfully transplanted from the front garden in readiness for the landscaping works.

Forest Pansy

And I've been busy growing new things for the front garden and to fill in the gaps in the back garden. Lots of salvias, echiums and sedums. Some from cuttings, some from seed (via the Diggers Club who have the more unusual varieties you can't buy from nurseries).

Seedlings waiting for the front garden….

So I'll be posting hopefully in a couple of weeks with a radically different looking front garden. Happy Spring!

Bits and Pieces

About paint colours

Making a Grand Entrance

Where to Save when building or renovating

Where to Spend when building or renovating

The Dining Room

Before and After - from Kitchen to Bedroom

Autumn

Arts and Crafts revival

Book Chat - Gardening, Architecture and Interiors

The Art of Patience

Falling down the rabbit hole of internet reviews

Top 6

Table setting

Flipping out

Things I've found - clothes, bags, china, instagram, gardening tricks and flame throwers

Cheers

A trip to Hobart - Baking, Art and Food

Changing Careers mid life to Interior Design or Decoration

The Garden - plans and progress