A comfortable home

I was asked by a few people and sadly, no ,that is not what the house looks like. I wish it was! I've just been taking some inspiration from bathroom tiles, fair-face brick finishes and bedrooms. I have a foreboding about how long and involved this project is going to be and that it's not really going to speak to my love of interior designs as much as rough-and-tumble hacking, construction, sanding, doorway-framing and cementing, to try to get this place back to somewhere in the modern century!

We're trying to add as much glass as possible, to open up the spaces and light up the interior of the space. I would also love to strip the staircase into an exposed structure, update the bathrooms and paint the bedrooms back into smooth, nuanced comfortable spaces.

Work, barely started

A property is a bit like a baby. It's a space to call your own and a blank canvas, apartments and terraces in particular, which are very interesting tight spaces. If you are like me, it'd be great fun to watch the space change, to see walls go down, to replace dark with light and glass. Then once it's changed, well, maybe you get tired of it, it's like a infatuation that grows old and starts to show imperfections. And then, like a child that grows up, you sell it off to a new suitor and it no longer belongs to you.


Maybe that's my way of saying that it's like an emotional journey, one that has little reflection on the child but requires you, as the parent, to grow up. Recently, we undertook a switch from a new property, to an old one. It is a scary prospect, a bit like staring down a black hole that sucks away time and money. The prospect of starting over, without the novelty of the first baby, leaves less of a palette to dream. This is a classic second child- more substance, less bells and whistles, less upside, more work. There is the sobriety of experience and hopefully, a better understanding of what to strip down and what to build up. We are in very early days, so early that barely the beginning is in sight, so here are some aspirations.

Some incredible pictures

For some reason, I put these photos together under the same theme, I guess they are all baby bird photos! From time to time, I like to save incredible pictures that my friends send me and I thought these were really marvellous. The first picture is of our friend's couple-days-old newborn baby and his parents lying fast asleep together, the composition and colours are just gorgeous! It looks like one of those unposed, slightly hippie family Christmas cards.

The latter two pictures were from another friend who had rescued two baby birds that fell out of a nest at her home and her family were desperately trying to keep them alive and going by taking up their care. Again, such a lovely evocative sentiment in the photos and an awesome National Geographic type scale of the size of the baby birds in her palm.

A Grown-up room

I have a funny secret to share....when I think of rooms, like a mommy-and-daddy room, I think of shades of off-white, stone, beige and tan. Don't ask me why, why it's not a starkly modern room in white, dark and grey. In fact, it has no dark furniture, no dark wood bed. Nothing of that sort.

It sort of looks a bit like this. I don't know if I can do it, in the end, it's rather hard to work with No dark furniture. But there's something very relaxing, some polished and inviting about big spaces and light colours. And maybe that's what I want my kids to grow up with.

Bohemian and proud of the look

I think this is a bit more my speed- some awesome textures and contrasts in these photos!

Green Gorgeousness

This is not me, I'd be the first to admit that, it's a little too Victorian and tousled Tess wreath-ly. But it is gorgeous, isn't it?

Flower madness, it's not just me!

Just in case you think I'm really crazy with the wedding flowers I've been involved in recently, here are some pictures of my truly mad friend in HK who arranged flowers for her brother's wedding till her hands were numb.

Quite a spectacular of a flower and butterfly garden, which I think was the effect she was going for. My next wedding is on the 18th of September, a coral affair which I'm really looking forward to. In the meantime, more of my ideas and fancies...