An unearthed house

Driving through Port Melbourne yesterday I spied a lovely little terrace house seriously stripped back whilst being renovated by Unearthed Developments, which lead me to thinking 'I wonder what other work they've done in the area?'. I quickly took note of the web address on their sign and later sat down at my computer to check out their website - there are only a few examples of their work shown on the site, but one particular house really caught my eye.

Crisp white spaces, numerous large windows and doors to bring the sunshine and the outdoors in, classic yet contemporary. Take a peek:

(Note: You can click on each of the images for a larger / better quality photo or pop over to the Unearthed Development site)

[Images: Unearthed Developments]

Book love: One

I've been away working interstate this week and haven't been able to post, but one good thing about being away was that while waiting and waiting for my delayed flight last night I had plenty of time to peruse the bookshop. My favourite pastime (perusing bookshops that is, not waiting for flights!). In the airport bookshop my eyes instantly fell upon the beautiful cover of 'One: Living as one and loving it'...

'One' is "celebration of individuality and life" and it is one of the most beautiful pictorial books I have seen in quite a long time - right up there with Sibella Court's Etcetera. I quickly handed over my hard earned cash at the register and I'm now looking forward to devouring both the images and the text of this gorgeous book. Victoria Alexander writes in such a beautiful, prosaic manner. It's very engaging. Best of all, Victoria Alexander has an amazing pictorial blog - this is just one of the lovely images that's both in her book and on her blog. Well worth checking out both the book and the blog!

[Images: 1 - Murdoch Books; 2 - Victoria Alexander]

Pinched and a pop of colour

See these flowers...I must confess that I pinched them - out on my daily walk with the dog there was a feast of colourful flowers hanging over neighbourhood fences. I just couldn't help myself. Lilac, rhododendron, blossom and geranium: a beautiful spring bounty...

And, a new 'pop' of colour for my bathroom. I usually veer towards neutral colours but when it came time to buy some new towels for the bathroom last week I surprised even myself by choosing a strong green colour. I think it adds a nice lift to the otherwise neutral bathroom...

AIDA - A feast for the eyes

My lovely friend Alex urged me to take a look at The Australian Interior Design Awards site - she described it as pure interior design heaven and of course with a recommendation like that I wasted no time checking it out. Now this turned out to be both a good and bad thing - good in that the AIDA site contained some of the most beautifully designed homes and commercial properties that I 've seen in a long time; bad in that I wasted more than a couple of hours just drooling over the pics on the site. The interior design projects nominated and awarded over the past six years are definitely inspirational...one of my favourites on the site would have to be the following Sydney coastal home interior designed by Hare + Klein Interior Design - it's just a lovely, relaxed style:

Now I might be very late to the party and everyone else knows about this gorgeous site, but if you haven't checked it out and you've got a spare hour or two I'd definitely recommend checking out the Australian Interior Design Awards site. Gorgeous!

[All images from Australian Interior Design Awards site]

Monday shop post: Kyo

Sunday...stormy one minute, then sunny the next. It's like Melbourne can't decide whether it's winter or spring at the moment.  It was in the midst of such undecided weather that my husband, son & I set out to make the trek down to the coastal town of Ocean Grove (about a two hour drive) for 'Oktoberfest', an extended family get-together that celebrates no less than seven family birthdays that occur in the month of October. I pleaded with my husband, "please, please can we head off just a little bit earlier in the morning so that I can stop in at Kyo in Ocean Grove".

Well, despite good intentions we just didn't have the time to make a quick detour to Kyo! So, I've decided that I'm going to have a to make special trip down to Ocean Grove to spend a couple of hours trawling the aisles of this massive warehouse that carries an unusual mix of Argentinian, Chinese, Indian, Japanese and Moroccan wares. Here's just a taste of what I missed out on (or thinking positively, a sample of things I can look forward to seeing):

And a few of the things I spotted on their site that I particularly like...

A safi ginger jar - beautiful design & colours:

A Chinese hat box with a lovely floral design:

 I could perhaps imagine a couple of these storage chests lined up together in my hall - they might make a nice hall table:

 And a Rajasthan vintage textile pack for my sister who does all sorts of wonderful artistic things with textiles:

[All images from Kyo]

Where have I been?

A couple of weeks after I arrived home from Washington, my husband and son and I took off for a holiday in Thailand for a few weeks. Bliss! But it seems like an eon ago and I'm already itching for another holiday (obviously I'm greedy with a capital G). I've been back a couple of weeks but I've been so busy with work I've barely been able to scratch myself, hence the lack of posting. But I'm back on deck now and looking forward to getting back into the swing of posting.

Washington was work, work, work and not much else (but a great job & lovely people to work with), and Thailand was so very, very relaxing coming off the back of the U.S. trip.  The highlight of the trip for me was a visit to the flower market in Chiang Mai and I thought I'd share just a few of  the snaps I took to savour the memory - it was a riot of colour and scents...