the very long weekend...

our backyard blitz has started in earnest

Today, it feels a bit to me like the real first day of the year.  The traffic is back on the roads, there's a chill in the air, and I am finally getting a bit of work focus (my work efforts have been extremely sporadic thus far).

We spent the Australia Day long weekend doing two things - firstly, starting work on our backyard, which, since the arrival of Dougal the digger three years ago, has gone from lush green, to a repulsive lunar landscape.  All I can say is it's lucky he's so cute..... We tackled a quick paint job, giving the pool wall a coat of Dulux's Saphire Stone, and one very faded sun lounge a spray of Pink Flamingo.  Then we started the real work, digging and levelling the soil in order to create some new stone paths and garden beds.  I'd made a trip to Fultons on Friday to buy a heap of stones for the new path - but not quite enough so I'll be back there this week - probably twice!

Secondly we've been doing some intense nursing of Annebelle - she arrived back from her school trip as sick as a dog and has literally sweated, coughed and slept for six days.  It's back to school this week so hopefully she's on the mend!

So, I guess it's back to it!  Roll on 2013!

hx

gorgeous Melbourne home - Rowena Martinich and Geoffrey Carran

the home of Rowena Martinich and Geoffrey Carran, photo by Armelle Habib, story and styling by Heather Nette King, copyright Fairfax Media

If you are up for a bit of lifestyle/talent envy - then look no further than this gorgeous pair.  Armelle and I recently visited  Rowena Martinich and Geoffrey Carran to shoot this Sunday Life home feature, and I got a dose of the envies, big time.

They were just back from working collaboratively on a major installation in Turkey, and they divide their time between making joyous, beautiful art, working on a family sheep property and hitting the waves, surfing.  Young, gorgeous, talented.....  I must have been weighed down in a mental quagmire of lunch boxes and deadlines that day - I just wanted to run away and paint and surf (like I can do either of those, lol)

This story ran last Sunday in the Sydney Morning Herald / The Age, Sunday Life magazine, and I have just heard from Rowena and Geoffrey that next week they are holding an open studio - here are the details.

Enjoy, hx

more cushion love...

I've borrowed this cushion from Turner and Lane for a shoot, but how cute does it look in my hallway?  I am trying very hard not to buy it.

(the lovely photo is by Max Doyle)

Stay cool in the heat today.

hx

Can you believe it's been that long? Starck's Louis Ghost turns ten!

Louis turns ten!

If I had a dollar for every one of these chairs I have styled in shoots....

I hear that more than 15,000 have been sold in Australia alone - so it figures!  To mark the occasion, Philippe Starck & Kartell have released a limited edition signature engraved edition of his humorous, groundbreaking design.  

I think it's one of those designs that we all loved to pieces, then got over, then gradually remembered how great they are, and why we loved them in the first place.  Like Cath Kidston's beautiful textile designs - they are the new classics.

It's available for $420 at Space.

hx

pimping the bentwoods, so what's new...

So yesterday morning I looked at the dining table and chairs.  All was calm, all was white.  I got edgy.  Things had to change.  So I started another bentwood make-over, above:

Here are a few of their previous colour incarnations:

yesterday morning - serenity be damned

way back when - I still love the pastels

in a seriously blue phase

pure, setting up for a shoot

The Immerse palette for Dulux in 2011

I'll get a few more chairs painted today. Then the table. I just wish I had the strength (or the budget) to tackle the floors. I've learnt my lesson re painting floors white - the kitchen needs constant repainting so that won't be happening here. We'll see...

hx

Carni-chic

Carnival inspired homewares styled by Heather Nette King 

Here is my first Sunday Age M magazine Savvy Shopper shoot to appear in 2013 - and it was inspired by all of those carnivals and circuses that roll into town over the Christmas holidays.  Despite their inherent tackiness, I am a sucker for those flashing lights and the promise of fairy-floss.  Going to the carni was an annual treat for me at our lovely long hot summers by the beach at Ocean Grove.  It's now on the foreshore at Barwon Heads - and strangely this was the first year our girls didn't want to go - they are growing up, sad-face!

This shoot was done in a state of delirium (which actually may have helped!).  I was knackered from a massive shoot in the preceding days, and Mike was on his fourth Savvy shoot in three days (along with my fellow Savvy stylists, Ruth and Emily,  I was stockpiling the shoots before the Christmas break).  We started at around 4pm, then packed down at about 11pm - with the help of my extremely excellent husband, who took pity on me and came to lend some muscle - thanks Jez!  I am so happy with the final shot - there's nothing I love more than a touch of drama, theatre and whimsy.

hx

here it is on the page (non-Melbournians you can email me for stockist details) 

This shoot appeared in the Sunday Age M mag yesterday.  Copyright Fairfax Media

the aftermath!

home...and not at home

I have been thinking a lot about home this week. I've always thought that home is anywhere you lay your knives and forks, and put your sheets on the bed. Anywhere in the world. But even though I have technically been at home all week (beach house plans were thwarted by work), it hasn't really felt like home as my darling big girl Annebelle is away on a school trip to Paris. I am so thrilled for her - it's such a wonderful adventure for a fifteen year old. She is with beautiful, kind friends and great teachers, but man I miss that sunny kid.  I know Jem and Al are feeling it too.

So we have been keeping busy.

Al's doll Phoebe won the coveted role of Glynda in the Broadway production of Wicked, so she is busy with wardrobe duties.  Dougal has been busy stealing sequins.  Sugar the cat has been really, really hungry - lol what's new?  I have been sourcing some of the most divine homes to shoot (cant wait!) and captioning some shoots I adored working on last year.

Jem and Al and I have also been putting in the hard yards on the field  - and I have just had to see my physio to have my newly developed sports injury seen to.  Well,  if seizing your neck up after watching 22 episodes of Friday Night Lights over four nights isn't technically a sports injury, I don't know what is?

I have been dreaming up some projects for our home - mostly involving paint and fabric.  And like everyone, planning for 2013.  Bring it on, I say (and hurry home Belle xxxx).
hx

gorgeous Melbourne home - Cathryn Wills of Mimco

click on the  image to enlarge it

Here is another home that Armelle and I covered for Sunday Life last year.  If you suffer shoe envy, then you may want to look away, as Cathryn is the Creative Director at Mimco, and as you would imagine, she has a shoe/bag/accessory collection to die for.  What I adore about this warehouse conversion is Cathryn's unerring confidence when mixing styles.  She throws in a bit of Italian Renaissance with modernism with Bauhaus - whatever takes her fancy, really.  It's proof again that if you love something and it sets your own heart aflutter, then go with it.  It may not be to everyone's taste, but who are you decorating for? Long live creative homes, I say!

Mixing it up with Cathryn Wills

Photos by Armelle Habib, story and styling by Heather Nette King, copyright owned by Fairfax Media

Welcome 2013, and a gorgeous melbourne home - Glenn Lamont's renovated workers cottage.

Well, Happy New Year to you!

I hope you had a fab festive break. Mine has been a bit all over the place. My last shoot for 2012 was the Saturday before Christmas, then Armelle and I squeezed in a Sunday Life shoot last week, but it was an easy one (a fellow stylists home) and it only took me nine minutes to drive there from Ocean Grove, so that made working on day two of the new year slightly less obnoxious!

I am trying to coax my addled holiday brain back into work mode. but, I am still planning a few more days down at the beach just to ease back into things. A few more emails then I am outta here.

I am also trying to keep busy so that I don't get all weepy - last Saturday my darling big girl Annebelle jetted off to Paris for a school language/culture tour.   After (me, obsessively) watching her plane via Flighttracker for almost 24 hours she called last night to say she had arrived and this morning we awoke to texts and photos of her first evening.  The Christmas decorations are still up and Paris looks magical.  The photos she took of the Hermes windows are heavenly (yes, she's a well-trained stylists daughter - she knows exactly what to shoot for her mamma). But man, I miss her.

Now, last year I was a tad tardy in posting my shoots on the blog, so here is one of my favourites of the year, that ran in Sunday Life a few months back.  It's the home of Glenn Lamont, of design firm LifeSpace Journey.  Stunning huh?

I'll post some more this week.
hx