Interior Design Sense

We received an email from a reader named Dane recently, and as today is a holiday here in Canada and I’m wishing I could be hanging out at my sister’s cottage enjoying the scenery instead of home doing work and chores, I thought this was a perfect post (that might however have me in tears). Thought you would love this property. An old friend of mine Jenny Inch owns this home, she is a landscape designer (as you can tell from the images). This remains the most beautiful home I’ve had the pleasure of visiting, and the gardens are amazing. Enjoy! Enjoy we shall! Murrakaia is located in Dulong, Queensland, Australia and is currently for sale. It’s located on 3 private acres and the home features two large bedrooms, a generous study, two bathrooms and two living areas, and it’s only 90 minutes from Brisbane. The landscaping is out of this world. It’s absolutely gorgeous and Jenny is obviously talented in that area. 

We received an email from a reader named Dane recently, and as today is a holiday here in Canada and I’m wishing I could be hanging out at my sister’s cottage enjoying the scenery instead of home doing work and chores, I thought this was a perfect post (that might however have me in tears). Thought you would love this property. An old friend of mine Jenny Inch owns this home, she is a landscape designer (as you can tell from the images). This remains the most beautiful home I’ve had the pleasure of visiting, and the gardens are amazing. Enjoy! Enjoy we shall! Murrakaia is located in Dulong, Queensland, Australia and is currently for sale. It’s located on 3 private acres and the home features two large bedrooms, a generous study, two bathrooms and two living areas, and it’s only 90 minutes from Brisbane. The landscaping is out of this world. It’s absolutely gorgeous and Jenny is obviously talented in that area. 

It’s one that got away. A time capsule of 60s cool. Stepping down a sloping block in Fern Tree, Tasmania is this brick and glass split level designed by David McGlashan. A tweak of the bathrooms and kitchen, move in my West German pottery collection, switch on the Bitossi lamps and rub the danish oil all over the teak table. I’d be in heaven. Alas I missed it but can still dream. Link here while it lasts.

5 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, leafy courtyard. Living large in the inner city with a  large price tag. I’m stalking in Darlinghurst, Sydney. So close to the central business district that you could almost wave to the office workers. Perhaps that’s why in its previous life this beautiful old home was a commercial business, albeit a stylish landscape design business.  First link here while the second is here.

Loving this extension and renovation by Sydney renovations and interior decorating firm Urban Splash. White, bright and playful this family home is creative and fun. A canvas of white walls allows quirky colour accents to shine through. Wallpapered stair risers? Yes please. I would have loved to have called one of the children’s rooms mine growing up and the bathrooms are simple but standout with their pattern tiles across floors and climbing up walls. It’s a stylish home, casual and practical with a definite wow factor.

Jo featured a really innovative kitchen a couple of weeks ago by Minosa Design, and today I’ve got a stunning bathroom. It’s so sparkly and gorgeous – mostly due to the gorgeous Bisazza glass mosaics – and frankly makes my bathrooms look horrifying (they haven’t been renovated ever, mind you). Can I get it to go?

Jo featured a really innovative kitchen a couple of weeks ago by Minosa Design, and today I’ve got a stunning bathroom. It’s so sparkly and gorgeous – mostly due to the gorgeous Bisazza glass mosaics – and frankly makes my bathrooms look horrifying (they haven’t been renovated ever, mind you). Can I get it to go?

Jo featured a really innovative kitchen a couple of weeks ago by Minosa Design, and today I’ve got a stunning bathroom. It’s so sparkly and gorgeous – mostly due to the gorgeous Bisazza glass mosaics – and frankly makes my bathrooms look horrifying (they haven’t been renovated ever, mind you). Can I get it to go?

Here is Alia Bengana‘s second project she sent over: Apartment in the heart of Paris 1st arrondissement overlooking the biggest Paris construction site. This project was about giving some personality to this apartment, creating as much as possible built in cupboards and bookshelves in an apartment that had none. The materials chosen for those small interventions here and there were natural oak, dark colored oak, lacquered mdf, and colored cement resin for the bathrooms and kitchen floor. The classical Paris molding around doors were painted in dark grey in order to highlight them with a contemporary twist. A very long and dark corridor was painted bright red. Love the floor, and the red hallway is a fun idea in an otherwise boring space!

I love a Queensland home. History and grace and a sense of place. Whether the typical timber and tin Queenslander, a gingerbread Federation style or the local version of the California Bungalow (it appears California colonised large tracts of between wars Australia … who would have thought?), these homes are sort after by families in my part of the world. Lovely as they are they do not lend themselves to modern family life though. Faced with a warren of small rooms and generations of unsympathetic renos, home owners want open plan family living, dining and kitchen, extra bathrooms, car parking and swimming pools, decks for al fresco living. What to do? Often our inner city homes are demolished and a contemporary house constructed that bulges over the site and dwarfs the neighbours, changing the streetscape, imposing its “newness”. Today I thought I’d share two homes that have been extended and renovated by Brisbane based Dion Seminara Architecture. Charming old homes now just right for modern family living still with a sense of history and place.