Ice Cream Palette

Now that it's spring, all I seem to see are ice cream colours everywhere.

Spearmint, Lemon and Strawberry:

Cherry and Pistachio, with Coffee and Hazelnut in the background:

Strawberry, Lemon and Blueberry:

Spearmint, Orange, Lemon and Raspberry:

What happpened to the dark, monochrome palette I was considering? Oh well, changing our interiors with our moods is part of the fun, isn't it?



Design Dilemma Solved

This week I decided to face a dilemma I've been putting off for a few years. This oil painting belonged to my husband's mother, and he has been wanting me to hang it for ages. No matter how much I tried, I couldn't really see a place for it on any wall I conjured up in my imagination:

He also confessed that some time ago he had trodden on and broken this lovely art deco mirror of his grandmother's, and wondered whether it was possible to hang it somewhere in this condition:

Fortunately my books and tear sheets came in handy because I realised that no matter what the individual disadvantages of the picture and mirror, it is possible to create something that is greater than the sum of its parts. So we unearthed a few more artworks that had belonged to his mother and grandmother and, voila!, here it is - a wall of artworks diverse in style and medium but united by the theme of water:

I think they look much better than they would have individually, especially as they are in the house which belonged to his grandmother. We also picked some strelitzias and put them in one of her old vases:

Then I rehung the mirror which had originally been on the other wall. It looks so much better in its new location:

At last I can justify all the money I've spent on those books and magazines!

Sometimes When Things Are Just Not Working . . .

. . . you need to step back and take a long hard look. On the same property as the boatshed is a house, whose living room has looked like this for the past five years. While I've made do with the furniture due to a lack of funds, the Klimt print on the wall bothered me in that it seemed a little too formal for the laid-back beachy feel I wanted:

So I took it off the wall. Pretty radical after five years. Then I got a mirror from somewhere else that seemed to be a little more casual and put it up in its place. I think the room works a lot better now:

On the front veranda is a setting which I recently had re-covered and I like the sand coloured upholstery. I threw some cushions on it a few months ago because I had them lying around, and there they've stayed. But I've always thought the autumnal tones didn't look quite right. They weren't totally wrong, but something about them niggled:

So I put these blue-toned ones there instead, and I think they fit the over all aesthetic of the house much better, and make me want to sit there:

Now to tackle a few other problem areas that don't quite work . . . I think I'll be posting on this quite regularly in future.

Spring cleaning

With summer just around the corner, we've been sprucing things up. There's not much to do on the boatshed, so we've shifted our focus to a nearby house. For the past four years this lounge on the veranda has had its original 60s olive and orange cushions covered by makeshift white covers. It was time for a makeover, so I got my friendly upholsterer to recover the cushions in an oatmeal fabric:

The sandy tone gives it a subtle beachy feel and goes well with white:

We replanted the garden at the front of the veranda with some traditional plants like azaleas which I think are nonetheless compatible with the natives and the Aussie icon, the water tank:

Here is the bigger picture:

I can't wait till they grow and the flowers come out:

Thanks to our gardener friend Tass for selecting just the right plants for the space