gorgeous Melbourne home - Anke Kindle's elegant minimalism.

Anke Kindle in her kitchen, photo by Armelle Habib, styling by Heather Nette King, copyright owned by Fairfax Media

Elegant simplicity. That's what Anke Kindle and Byron Raleigh's kitchen is all about. When I look at this photo I want to pull out all of my kitchen cupboards and just have plain wooden planks for shelves.  The rest of her home is equally delicious - think super-stylish Scandi-minimalism with exquisitely crafted finishes (created by furniture designer & maker Byron). This home also boasts some serious eco-cred, and a very thoughtful approach to living. My tip is that we're going to be seeing a whole lot more of these honest, understated homes.

This story appeared in the Sunday Age Sunday Life magazine last weekend.  Photos by Armelle Habib, styling and story by me, copyright owned by Fairfax Ltd.

hx

HK Living lands in Australia, today!

drooling over the HK living catalogue

I just popped in to see the divine Ursula and Hans Van Schoonhoven at their Armadale store, House of Orange, and man, the place was buzzing!  They had just taken receipt of the first Australian shipment of beautiful Dutch homewares from HK Living.  Everything in the range works so beautifully with Ursula and Hans' own lovingly designed House of Orange pieces - those Dutch peeps have got it all going on, don't they?

Patched wool cushions, button hooks and twig hooks,  Divine!

the oversized bread boards are amazing, and really competitively priced - don't miss out.

Now I just have to tear myself away from the catalogue and do some work - no easy task!

Hx

baking day...

Sunday Age Savvy Shopper  - baking style. Photo by Mike Baker. Styling by Heather Nette King. Copyright Fairfax Media 

I don't even want to think about how much icing l stuffed my face with on this shoot.  I know I used five x one kilo bags of icing sugar, and let's just say not all of it ended up in front of the camera... I may have eaten a cupcake or two as well.  Workplace hazards, huh?

Photo by Heather Nette King

On a more positive note, I finally got to use the gorgeous pressed tin sheets that I bought back here in October.  Oh how I love the strong, dirty pastels in this shoot.  I could practically eat them. Hmmm, that's right, I did.

This shoot appeared today in the Sunday Age, M magazine Savvy Shopper page.  Gorgeous photography by Mike Baker, styling and words by me, and copyright owned by Fairfax Ltd.

If you live interstate and want to know where to purchase anything on the page, email me.

hx

gorgeous Melbourne home - Anita Storti's Tretchikoff tribute

Anita Storti's amazing ensuite - photo by Armelle Habib, styling by Heather Nette King, copyright Fairfax Media

It's been such a weird-arse day.  I am kinda stapled to my computer, wading through the mountain of stories I need to write and file.  It's all good, but I just need to find my groove, and today the only way I have been able to do that is by drinking copious cups of Lady Grey tea and listening to one song, and one song only, many times over - Mark Lanegan's 'Ode To Sad Disco' (I'd link it but I have no idea how!) Even a necessary trip to the supermarche felt like an outer-body experience today.  Yep, total weirdness here, and it's quite possibly a come-down after three lovely days away at Clunes with our excellent mates Di, Storm and Honey.

Anyway... back to the blog.  How amazing is Anita Storti's ensuite?  Inspired by her love of all things Vladimir Tretchikoff, the idea of doing a whole wall mural came to Anita as she lay in bed one night.  It's just one room of her fabulous West Footscray home that appeared in the Sunday Age / Sun Herald Sunday Life magazine last weekend.  A great home and a great family.  I absolutely loved doing this shoot.

Thanks to Shannon for the tip-off about this great home.

Photography by Armelle Habib. Styling and story by Heather Nette King, copyright owned by Fairfax Media.

hx

Kirsty nails it in one!

Tabletop portrait by Kirsty of Kootoyoo

 I am like a week overdue with this post - I don't know what has happened to my time-management skills.  I used to be always on time, or early, with deadlines, appointments, everything.  Anyway, I'm hoping to make up some ground today...

Back to the story, last week the beautiful Kirsty Macafee, of Kootoyoo, was the guest blogger on Melbourne's wonderful and wildly successful design blog, The Design Files.  Kirst has just completed a year of creating weekly photographic tabletop portraits, which are accompanied on her blog by a poetic round-up of her week. They are always beautiful.

For TDF, she created a series of portraits depicting  Shannon Lamden, Tim Coulsen,  Victoria Mason, Gemma Jones and, I am very happy to say, me.
Click the links to check each of them out. When my family saw my portrait, filled with pink, a trophy and paint and rose references, they all said, "She nailed you in one!" Thanks Kirsty!

hx

my week...

waking up to this view was nuts

I'm feeling a little like I have been hit by a truck this morning...but a good truck, if you get what I mean?  Five shoots in four days, three of which were in glorious country Victoria.  Yes, I am deeply in love with Victoria's gorgeous North at the moment - oh the colours.  I saw distant snow, hung out with two top birds, ate and drank plenty and met charming people with great stories to tell.  It was brilliant, though, to get home and curl up on the couch with Jem and the girls, and have the loyal hound at my feet.  A top week. hx

Oh Penny - come home with me!

sweet pigs!