Fibros On The Inside

By request, here are some interiors from Life's A Beach and Gidget, both the creation of my friend Christine Lewis. They now have new owners who love them and are taking them to the next level.

Thanks to Simon Kenny for the great photos.

More Fibro

My husband, who is sometimes jokingly called "the fibro architect", sent me these photos (at botom) of typical fibros before the makeover. These ones which date from the 1950s-60s with the butterfly roofs are one of the most sought-after designs.

The gorgeous pink fibro called "Gidget", is one he is working on at he moment for clients Claire and Richard. They have done a great job decorating Gidget with a fun retro theme.

The blue one with the orange door is an ugly duckling makeover challenge we could not resist.

The fourth fibro, called 'Life's A Beach", was one of the first to be decorated in an over-the-top, retro style by Chris Lewis.

Just What Is A Fibro Shack?

I often get asked by readers from the USA what a fibro beach shack is and today there was another query.

Fibro cottages date back to the 1920s and are the iconic Aussie Beach Shack. We bought our first beach fibro back in 1998 and got hooked on their quaint, retro holiday vibe and have been buying and doing them up ever since.

They have become very trendy with creative types from the city and where we live there is a kind of unofficial contest to see who does the best fibro makeover.

Some are done in a retro kitsch way, others in a more sophisticated "designer" way.

Some of them have great names like:

The Big Kahuna

On The Beach

The Fibro Majestic (after a famous old hotel called the Hydro Majestic)

Life's A Beach

Gidget Goes to Culburra

Summercloud

The Riverboat Queen

Duz Us

Keep It Personal

Today I was reminded by my friend Allison over at Pink Fibro, who is a pretty talented writer (and sub editor), to keep my blogs more personal. I think my last post on Ilse Crawford was a little too 'magazine', so here's the back story.

Al reckons I should feel free to name drop, too, although I must admit I am cringing...

Ok. Yes, I have met Ilse Crawford many years ago - at a small party my old mate Craig Markham, who runs all those Firmdale Hotels out of London, threw in her honor. I found her to be elegant in a modern way but very real, an unusual combination that gives her a certain aura.

Among the gang of Aussie expats there was photographer Martyn Thompson who shot her recent book, Home is Where The Heart Is. I used to work with Martyn quite a lot back in those days and am occasionally reminded of him by a beautiful picture of a face he took that hangs above my fireplace. Martyn and Ilse are a creative match made in heaven. They share the same love of dark, sophisticated images (or is that just the London/New York light?) and a quite masculine interior aesthetic.

Martyn is a very stylish man and the interiors of his own homes have always been a passion - there is an interesting series of still lifes and collections in every room. I can see his hand in the book is more than just recording the things and places Ilse wanted to include.

What strikes me most about the interiors he photographs are how personal they are. I think a style lesson to be leaned from this creative duo is how important personal touches are in your surroundings (as well your blogs). They are not only good for your soul they put the soul into a room. Remember this next time you put a room together, or change things around if the room doesn't 'feel right' and it will suddenly come together.

"IT" Girls of Design - Ilse Crawford

While on the subject of attainable fashion guru Jenna Lyons at J.Crew, I was reminded of some other style makers of our generation.

These are the people who, I think, are making us re-think design trends as well as inspire us. These are the girls I check up on every now and then when I need a trend injection.

(I think I'll do one per post as they are all so interesting in different ways...)

1. Ilse Crawford is the former editor of Elle Decoration in the UK who now runs a design consultancy that tackles all kinds of interesting projects, including many hotels, restaurants, commercial spaces and offices from rural England to Hong Kong, Stockholm and New York.

What I like about Ilse is that she has brought our perceptions of what is "designer" back from the brink of cold and stark minimalism to something that is all about addressing human needs - what she calls "emotional design".

Ilse's approach to designing a space is intellectual but that is far from uptight and boring. She seems to set out to weave a cocoon of emotional cues that invoke memories and history and tease the senses with texture, pattern and colour.

Looking at these random examples above, what I love is the confidence of mixing different styles of furniture and the irreverent way she has taken 'personal touches' to a whole new level -note the 2nd top picture (Soho House, NYC) with the collage board, glossed french bedhead and glossy modern chair.

What is really great though is that these are all public spaces. She has given the hotel room and restaurant genre the personality of someone's private boudoir, like you are staying in some stylish New Yorker friend's Soho loft while they are away.

And... there's not a practical mushroom tub chair in sight!

Does Jenna Have Sequined Cushions?

I love the style of J.Crew's chief designer Jenna Lyons. Love her Brooklyn brownstone. Love the way she teams a nautical stripe tee with pewter sequined pants.

Love the way she approaches trends with a kind of brave, girly, gut instinct - "we feel what's new, what excites us for the season, and it might have been something we didn't like last season". She said something along those lines.

It occurred to me when I saw her on Oprah yesterday (we get it a two months later here, sorry US readers) that its taken me a while to come around to sequins in the home. Is it just me?

For about two years now we have been presented with endless shiney bedlinen and throw cushions at trade shows and I have berated the wholesaler's reps over and over again. "I'm SORRY, but I just don't get that look for the bedroom. It's just too shiney for me."

The penny has dropped that the reason I am not a fan of that look because I have not seen it put together well. I'm coming around now to sequins in the home but I'm going to style it like Jenna would. Team it with a cotton stripe and add something else that's a bit decadent like the equivalent of the chunky beaded bracelet Jenna would wear.

"I Want A Hamptons House"

My husband is forever being asked to design a "Hamptons House" for his clients. I blame the movie "Something's Gotta Give" and Martha Stewart among others. Now you Americans out there, yes, you can take a pat on the back for inventing this enduring, classicly elegant look.

Today he asked me again for some visual cues and I gave him the pic of Diane Keaton's living room in SGG.

What I want to know is where did it come from?

Have you Hamptons fans got some inspiring pics of the outside of these houses you could share with me?

(I have posted this one on the dunes before but I just love it.)

Room For A Teen

One topic you don't often see much of in design magazines is how to decorate a room for a teen. This is a great example from Louise's place which her eldest daughter (who had just finished design school) put together for her 15 year old sister.

There's a cool chill-out zone for the teen and her girlfriends, where they sit around, chat and sip tea, an elevated sleeping area above the well used wardrobe and the all important study area underneath.

The girls are forever out shopping for vintage stuff and I love the way they have created a very personal, funky vibe with the old standard lamp, painted picture frames, nanna rug and chair painted bright red.

Contemporary Country

Sometimes you only have to look in your own backyard for inspiration. My friend Louise, who lives only a few of paddocks away, has an amazing house. I did a story on her (of course!) for Country Style Magazine a while ago and now that I'm thinking of the possibilities for my own house, I don't have to look far for ideas.

Like us she had the old farm cottage to start with. It was completely renovated then two more contemporary pavilions were added - the largest for the living area has dramatic, recycled wharf timber beams framing the ceiling. The smaller pavilion is attached to the old cottage and houses such modern amenities as ensuites, walk in robes, powder room and laundry.

It's a great marriage of old and new and has made a great home for a family of six.

One Year On...

It's early - before sunrise at the farmhouse - and I just can't believe that it's been exactly a year since I started this blog. It would not have come into being if I had not met and interviewed Anna Spiro of Absolutely Beautiful Things for a story in Vogue Living. Anna is one of this country's best known design bloggers and has an impressive following all round the world. She, like many of us, is vexed with a driving passion for good design and an eye for finding the beauty in every day things.

I know that like me she has to juggle the demands of a young family and working life to find the time to blog, more often than not in the wee hours of the night. So thanks - I think - for the inspiration, Anna!

Looking back, it seems my most popular posts were the ones where I talked about my own design and renovation projects. The posts where I talked about practical solutions from a design point of view, such as how to do a whitewashed or limed floor, so that it looks 'right' also were well received.

My farmhouse renovations will be the focus in the next little while and there are still the finishing touches to do at the beach cottages (will they ever be finished?). I'm happy to cover any other renovation topics you might want to know about. Just send me a comment.

The most intriguing thing about blogging is the connections you make with people with similar interests from all walks of life, from all over the world. Thank you for reading and commenting!

Jane Campsie: Vegie Patch Inspiration

While on the subject of living more sustainably and tree-changing, I remembered a particularly nice exmple.

Jane Campsie is a clever stylist and beauty writer (we used to work together at Marie Claire) who gave up her life in magazines to do a tree-change to a small village in Hampshire, England. Here she has created a lovely, textural home and an enviable garden, the feature of which is her vegie patch. Love her rustic potting shed, too.

Jane now has a florist and gift shop called The Garden Inn in the nearby town of Stockbridge.

Through The Looking Glass

Fashion photographer Tim Walker creates amazing images that are quintessentially, eccentrically, English. When I think of his elaborate sets I think of the imagination of Lewis Carroll and Alice In Wonderland. I love the way he uses beautiful interiors as a backdrop for his models.

I met Tim way back when we were both starting out in magazine land. I was the fledgling art director at Harpers Bazaar and he was in Sydney on a sort of working holiday from England and assisted our equally talented and imaginative fashion editor, Jane Roarty who has been a mentor for many of us.

Channeling Kevin

The British TV series, Grand Designs has been around for a few years now and has really raised our awareness of the quality of the spaces we inhabit and how we live.

According to series host Kevin McCloud, environmental issues are here to stay: 'Eco-building is no longer the domain of the knit-your-own-sandals brigade. Legislation and the Rio and Kyoto protocols require us to consider the environmental impact of everything we do, and clearly our homes are big producers of pollution both in their construction and in day-to-day running.

Like Kevin, I moved out of the city a few years ago to live a more balanced, in-touch-with-nature sort of life. As much as I loved the buzz of the city, the prospect of raising a toddler in a polluted inner city neighbourhood meant all that excitement began to lose its charm.

Home now is a 110 year old former dairy farm house in the middle of rolling green fields - within easy reach of a decent coffee and a handful of stylish shops. Being more eco-conscious does not have to mean going to the the trouble of building an underground house like the one on an episode of GD, however.

I like the fact that we are "recycling" an old farm house, which we have gradually updated and are extending with an old church hall which was saved from demolition and moved to the property from a local school yard just before Christmas.

I am no hippy - believe me! I'm a former Fash-Mag-Slag with a penchant for designer shoes, but I must say I take great satisfaction in the fact that we harvest all our own water supply, grow our own fruit, vegies and herbs and have huge, tumbling compost bins.

Gone are most of our incandescant lightbulbs, replaced with those energy efficient ones that take a while to kick in and give a ghostly fish and chip shop sort of light (!). When the budget will allow, we are hoping to install some wind power in the form of an old windmill as well as solar panels which will be the next step for reducing our environmental footprint.

The one thing I have yet to tackle to complete the whole tree change picture is having chickens. Everyone of my new-found country friends assures me they are no trouble but something about their beady eyes unnerves me. That and the fact they attract snakes.

I wonder if Kevin has chooks?

Bold Design Personality

I must say, no one does a lifestyle feature like US Vogue magazine. I love the mix of bold personalities, fashion and interiors, often put together by Hamish Bowles and photographed by Francois Halard.

These bold and stylish individuals are:

Alexis Trinca in her striped San Franciscan hall. How about the mix up of Chinese antiques and modern graphic artwork? And the Chloe coat is just fabulous.

The Thompson family in their Russian-inspired Brooklyn brownstone. Coveting that blue Farrow & Ball wallpaper and Olya's vintage Geoffrey Beene dress.

Interior design maven Kelly Wearstler in her LA home. Who else would think to team up a Hollywood-era staircase, a zebra skin rug and mad graphic wallpaper?