Admiring

Late last year I posted the entry foyer of this lovely house which was featured in the Dec/Jan 2012 issue of House Beautiful magazine.  It was such a wonderful surprise when I visited Heather at Habitually Chic this morning to discover that she recently visited this divine home which belongs to L.A. Designer Mark Sikes. 

Heather has prepared 2 fabulous posts which are chocker-block full of AMAZING images of Mark's Hollywood Hills home.  I think these 2 pictures above of his little sitting nook are my absolute favourite. 

I must say that this home is an example of white walls done extremely well.  It's so important to layer lots of fabulous bits and pieces, books, artwork, rugs, collections, fabrics and furniture on top of a blank canvas of white walls and floors.  And in my opinion, Mark has achieved the perfect balance here in his beautiful home.

Make sure you head over to Habitually Chic for the full scoop!

Happy Australia Day my Australian friends.  Hope you have a fabulous day!

xx

Anna

images - heather clawson for habitually chic

Simply Divine

I have a thing for white houses.  Our first house was white our second house was white, our beach cottage is white and our current house, which will be the house we stay in forever, will also eventually be white.  I don't ever stray to another colour and even when clients ask me what colour they should paint their house I always reply white.  The fact is that white houses never date.  I especially love white houses when they are surrounded by lots of gardens or big green luscious trees and lots of green neatly trimmed grass.  There is nothing prettier in my opinion.  I was completely awestruck when I spotted this beautiful old white house over at Coco + Kelley blog earlier this week.  How simply divine!!

White on White on White

I love this image which Interior Divine posted recently of a room in a converted farmhouse in South Africa. It's just so white and bright and fresh. I am loving, in particular, the non-existence of colour...I know that may sound strange coming from me!! I am also in-love with the particular collection of pieces in this room.

Image via Living Etc. July 2009 issue via Interior Divine blog

Uniquely Me Chic

I really like this room with it's white painted floorboards, white walls, white painted furniture, the vintage light and the few dots of colour. I also love the mix of furniture styles. Although this room has some items which I wouldn't usually purchase myself I think it all works and looks fantastic together and certainly represents a look I love so much - Uniquely Me Chic.

Image via Desire to Inspire

Room Love

I love this room for the sheer fact that it is so simply compiled. There's no fuss about this room just collections of things loved against an all-white background...my favourite!

Image - Malin Ngoie Photographer

Pale Blue Fixation

It's becoming increasingly obvious {see posts below} that I am totally smitten with pale blue at the moment. I adore the blue painted floors in this house.

Image - Coastal Living

My Mum's Favourite House

My mum has, for a very long time, loved this house on Mustique Island. She has numerous articles on it and books with it featured in....it is her dream house, the house which has been the inspiration behind some past projects of hers and I'm sure it will be the inspiration behind some future projects...this one's for you mum!! xx

All images via Coastal Living

Welcome To Our House...

I picked up the old front gate from a demolition yard as having one custom made was way too expensive. This one cost a mere $40!!

I covered most of the exterior windows with black and white stripe awnings as above.

Here you can see the old part of the kitchen which is made in white laminex. We do plan to eventually change these cabinets but for the meantime I am very happy with the way they work. To dress the kitchen up I placed an Antique French Armoire in this old section which I use as our pantry and opposite it I placed an old chest of drawers I had which houses my large collection of napery. On top I placed a few of my favourite pieces of china and above it I hung a painting which was painted for us by a family friend and given to us as an engagement present {as below}.

Above is the new island bench we had made for the Kitchen with a white carrara marble benchtop.

In the dining area I was inspired by U.S. Designer Windsor Smith to use my 2 old black and white wing chairs as end chairs which I then paired with a collection of mismatched Antique & Vintage side dining chairs.

I had this large bookcase custom built to cover the entire wall at the end of our new room so that it could house my large collection of magazines, books and pieces. I had to let my husband have one thing in this entire renovation and that was having the t.v. in this bookcase. I'm usually not a fan of t.v.'s on show but I gave in!!

This loom sofa I had custom painted in hot pink. I bring it inside during the week so that we have extra seating in our lounge room and then I take it out on the deck on the weekends when we have friends over.

I wanted to use wallpaper somewhere in the house and as I have alot of artwork I didn't want the house to look too cluttered with wallpaper as well so I decided to use this Manuel Canovas paper in the W.C. to add some interest and fun to a usually not so interesting room!!

In the bathroom I selected white subway tiles with grey grout on the walls and white hexagonal mosaics on the floor. I found the old timber workbench on Ebay for a very small sum of money and decided to use it in the bathroom. I went for two Antique mismatch mirrors which I absolutely adore!

Hello again. I know you've all been waiting so patiently for this........

Finally here are some pictures which I promised to show you of our newly renovated home! As you can see there's lots of white with pops of colour and lots of vintage/Antique pieces of furniture....my favourite look!! We are just so excited and thrilled with the end result and we feel so lucky to be able to have our little dream cottage renovated just the way we like it.

We still have a few more things to do which include building a new garage pavillion which will also have a little room to house our treadmill, renovating the other bathroom in the house, doing some new cabinetry in the kitchen, planting some garden beds and skim coating the exterior brickwork of the house which we plan to paint white...but all in good time and anyway I think would get bored if I didn't have a little project or two going on!! I hope you enjoy sneaking a peak inside our home. Thanks for dropping by!

Oh, PS...I do have one more room to show you which I will post pictures of this week....it's another little lounge room which Harry uses as his play room but it was WAY too messy to show you pictures of today!

Today

Today I scurried around picking up a few last minute bits and pieces for Harry's Birthday and who should I run into in one of my favourite little gift stores just down the road from where I live???.....Hayley from Porchlight Interiors. She too was running around picking up some Christmas presents for her children. It was so lovely to see her and because of our Blogs be able to say hi. I think it is so fantastic that Blogland has brought a few of us Brisbane Decorating girls closer and who knows maybe sometime in the future we might even organise a Bloggers morning tea. What do you think Brisbane girls...should we organise a morning tea in the New Year?? Here's another little snippet of my house above {my new Domino book taking pride of place} and yes I promise I will post lots more pictures of the house at the end of this week for you all to see!!

Back Again...

Hello, I'm back again with lots of inspiration and a clearer head and a to do list which doesn't look all that bad! It has been a very productive week in my world! Thanks for all of your lovely comments while I took a week away from the blog to catch up on things!

Last week it was my son's last week of his first year at school and whilst installing lots of pre-Christmas jobs at Black & Spiro my little family and I had to move out of our house as our floors were being painted. As I sit here and write this post at my new kitchen bench {with the most beautiful pink peonies I just picked up from my florist} our renovation is almost at an end....phew! I must say we are actually very lucky as we started this renovation only 2 1/2 months ago. I've had the most amazing team of men working here at the house and all have just been so wonderful, obliging and surprisingly on time!

This week is going to be another crazy week as we install more jobs at Black & Spiro and also as I prepare for a little 5 {turning 6} year old's family Birthday Party at home this Friday afternoon! But don't worry I will be here with lots of lovely things to share!

It's lovely to be back!

xx

Anna

Happy Weekend!!

These beautiful images, taken by photographer Hugh Stewart, of Collette Dinnigan's Sydney home were featured in Vogue Living a while ago. I absolutely adored her home. Her beautiful pieces of Antique furniture against an all-white background with books and flowers...perfection! I hope you have a lovely weekend.

More Paul Costello Loveliness

I think I may have saved every single image from photographer Paul Costello's website in my 'I Love Files'. His work is so beautiful, fresh, pretty, colourful and youthful. Last week I posted a few of his photos and I couldn't help sharing some more here today. How dreamy is that beautiful white house in the top image?! Love the cane furniture on the grass! My mum puts her cane furniture out on the grass under the shade of the trees at her house at Straddie in the Summer. It's just so lovely to sit with your bare feet in the cool grass on a hot Summer's day!!

All images - Paul Costello

Houses To Die For

Well it seems my blog block may have almost passed...phew! Thanks for all of your encouraging comments!! Look at these beautiful old houses captured by Erika over at Urban Grace. She and her friend Annmarie recently packed the kids in the van and went for a drive around Boston to 'stalk' some of the gorgeous houses around the place and WOW is all I can say! Here are a few which caught my eye!! The top one is my favourite!

Inspired By Others

Gorgeous wicker verandah furniture via Nibs Blog {House & Garden}


A beautiful old white timber house from Country Living via This is Glamorous


Beautiful kitchen cabinet via Habitually Chic

Stencil Library via My Notting Hill

Felicity's little pink tutu twins - so gorgeous!!


Loved this via Urban Grace via Design Crush via ffffound


Beautiful wedding dress via {I can't remember}

I have been a bit busy this week and consequently my posts have been a bit light on so tonight {to make it up to you} I thought I'd show you some of the things I have loved lately from some of my favourite blogs. Thank you to all my favourite bloggers out there {and I have lots of favourites} for your inspiration....I am continually inspired by the beautiful things you post!!