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mulberry - pic by anita jones
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helloneest.com
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Tuesday, March 26, 2013
a home without a cat is like a boat without a sail
Monday, March 4, 2013
so the wind won't blow it all away
When I was a child, my nana lived in lots of places. She even lived in the back of a Ford Escort panel van sometimes, when the travelling bug bit. She would sometimes come to visit us in the middle of one of these journeys, with her best friend Ben, a black labrador. Sometimes she came by train, and we would wait with barely contained excitement as she opened her exotic-smelling suitcase and bestowed the gifts she had brought for us. Her visits were special, but it was our annual pilgrimages to visit her that were the greatest gift. And as much as she seemed to love travelling, her homes were always like a paradise, filled with parts of herself and her life but always open and comforting.
The Lennox Head house was built of fibro and stood on stilts, literally stuck into the grey sand that turned into white just a few metres from the back steps, then became the ocean. There was a clump of bamboo and a bit of patchy grass dotted with faded lawn chairs, but ultimately the backyard was the beach. It was as close as it could possibly be without inundating the whole property, but in truth there was probably just as much ocean inside the house as out. Big chunks of pumice stone in the shower, seagrass matting gritty with sand, curtains faded from the sun but never really closed, like the windows, except on those summer afternoons when a tropical storm rolled in from the sea.
I don't remember Nana moving from Lennox, and when I think about it now I marvel that she could have ever left such a beautiful place. But a child's memory is forever, and an adult with foresight can clearly see that paradise is not. So she left while everything remained as it was, and these days that house is perfectly preserved as a memory and nothing more.
The next house was not far along that same coast, but a few streets from the beach. This time there was a backyard, and it was filled with flowers and trees, some of which had made the journey from the sandy beds at Lennox Head. There were tall pine trees hung with wind chimes and bird feeders and covered with sticky sap. There were always nasturtiums, and impatiens, and gazanias that opened and closed with the sun. The soil was still sandy, the lawn still patchy, and the ocean came in through the open windows just as it had done before. When I was 10 years old this house became my own home for a couple of years, and Nana left it to us for that time as she went on more travels and my family took a journey into cancer, and thankfully back again.
A long time has passed since then. Nana has not lived on the coast for more than 20 years. And just last month she moved into another home, packing up her one-bedroom unit and taking residence of one room in the nearby nursing home. She is 93, but in her boxes of belongings that she took with her there are still small reminders of her travels and her homes. She gave me a set of blue painted windchimes that I clearly remember hanging in a pine tree at her last house by the sea. I brought them home and hung them in my beautiful Robinia, and as soon as I heard their familiar melody I was 10 years old again. Now every time I hear them, I think about how strange and wonderful the memory is. That it can blow in on the wind and carry you back in time as though you weighed nothing at all.
.JPG)
The Lennox Head house was built of fibro and stood on stilts, literally stuck into the grey sand that turned into white just a few metres from the back steps, then became the ocean. There was a clump of bamboo and a bit of patchy grass dotted with faded lawn chairs, but ultimately the backyard was the beach. It was as close as it could possibly be without inundating the whole property, but in truth there was probably just as much ocean inside the house as out. Big chunks of pumice stone in the shower, seagrass matting gritty with sand, curtains faded from the sun but never really closed, like the windows, except on those summer afternoons when a tropical storm rolled in from the sea.
I don't remember Nana moving from Lennox, and when I think about it now I marvel that she could have ever left such a beautiful place. But a child's memory is forever, and an adult with foresight can clearly see that paradise is not. So she left while everything remained as it was, and these days that house is perfectly preserved as a memory and nothing more.
The next house was not far along that same coast, but a few streets from the beach. This time there was a backyard, and it was filled with flowers and trees, some of which had made the journey from the sandy beds at Lennox Head. There were tall pine trees hung with wind chimes and bird feeders and covered with sticky sap. There were always nasturtiums, and impatiens, and gazanias that opened and closed with the sun. The soil was still sandy, the lawn still patchy, and the ocean came in through the open windows just as it had done before. When I was 10 years old this house became my own home for a couple of years, and Nana left it to us for that time as she went on more travels and my family took a journey into cancer, and thankfully back again.
A long time has passed since then. Nana has not lived on the coast for more than 20 years. And just last month she moved into another home, packing up her one-bedroom unit and taking residence of one room in the nearby nursing home. She is 93, but in her boxes of belongings that she took with her there are still small reminders of her travels and her homes. She gave me a set of blue painted windchimes that I clearly remember hanging in a pine tree at her last house by the sea. I brought them home and hung them in my beautiful Robinia, and as soon as I heard their familiar melody I was 10 years old again. Now every time I hear them, I think about how strange and wonderful the memory is. That it can blow in on the wind and carry you back in time as though you weighed nothing at all.
.JPG)
Sunday, December 23, 2012
happy holidays
Around this time of year, if you’re very lucky, you’ll get to spend some time at a holiday house. Somewhere. Anywhere really. I’m not sure what your taste is in holiday homes, and it varies wildly depending on lots of things - the weather, the company, the landscape - but for me, the simpler the better. Because what is a holiday exactly if it doesn’t prompt you to come home and marvel at the sheer magnitude of stuff you fill your own house with. Stuff that doesn’t ever exist in a holiday house, and even if it did there would be nowhere to put it.
And so it was at Kurreki, a holiday house we spent a few days in during October, to mark a milestone birthday and generally just to get away from it all. As soon as I set foot on the sun-bleached timbers of Kurreki’s deck, the relaxing began. And didn’t stop until the day we drove away.
The house is owned by Newcastle-based architects Shane Blue and Rachael Bourne, of bourne+blue, and it is simplicity in its purest form. The bedrooms and living areas all face inwards to a central, open deck and gardens and can be opened up to create one big space that suits children and adults alike. Shane and Rachael apparently designed the house to calm their then young children’s fears about what lurked in the outside bush.
The list of things to love about Kurreki is long. There is the location: Seal Rocks; the feather-filled daybeds on two walls of the living room, complete with copious amounts of cushion; the combustion fire; the easy-clean everything; but I think my favourite thing was the bathroom. It consisted of one stall-like toilet, a stainless steel sink with fibreboard bench and the best shower I have ever had. The floor was the deck, with several holes drilled for drainage, the shower head was big and metal and old-fashioned in style and substance. The soap holder was a large rock. The only barrier between the occupant of the shower and the great outdoors was a brightly coloured and very flimsy shower curtain.
I balked at having a shower on our first evening at Kurreki. It was a bit gusty, going by the movement of the curtain. So I waited until morning, and then the whole corner was bathed in sunlight and the experience bordered on religious. I could even hang my towel on the rudimentary rails along one side of the house and they were baked warm and dry before lunch.
And so it was at Kurreki, a holiday house we spent a few days in during October, to mark a milestone birthday and generally just to get away from it all. As soon as I set foot on the sun-bleached timbers of Kurreki’s deck, the relaxing began. And didn’t stop until the day we drove away.
The house is owned by Newcastle-based architects Shane Blue and Rachael Bourne, of bourne+blue, and it is simplicity in its purest form. The bedrooms and living areas all face inwards to a central, open deck and gardens and can be opened up to create one big space that suits children and adults alike. Shane and Rachael apparently designed the house to calm their then young children’s fears about what lurked in the outside bush.
The list of things to love about Kurreki is long. There is the location: Seal Rocks; the feather-filled daybeds on two walls of the living room, complete with copious amounts of cushion; the combustion fire; the easy-clean everything; but I think my favourite thing was the bathroom. It consisted of one stall-like toilet, a stainless steel sink with fibreboard bench and the best shower I have ever had. The floor was the deck, with several holes drilled for drainage, the shower head was big and metal and old-fashioned in style and substance. The soap holder was a large rock. The only barrier between the occupant of the shower and the great outdoors was a brightly coloured and very flimsy shower curtain.
I balked at having a shower on our first evening at Kurreki. It was a bit gusty, going by the movement of the curtain. So I waited until morning, and then the whole corner was bathed in sunlight and the experience bordered on religious. I could even hang my towel on the rudimentary rails along one side of the house and they were baked warm and dry before lunch.
Saturday, December 8, 2012
words to live by
Your house shall be not an anchor but a mast. It shall not be a glistening film that covers a wound, but an eyelid that guards the eye. You shall not fold your wings that you may pass through doors, nor bend your heads that they strike not against a ceiling, nor fear to breathe lest walls should crack and fall down. You shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead for the living. And though of magnificence and splendour, your house shall not hold your secret nor shelter your longing. For that which is boundless in you abides in the mansion of the sky, whose door is the morning mist, and whose windows are the songs and silences of night. - Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
Monday, December 3, 2012
what my house wants for christmas
original vintage 160x120 poster c.1960 from galeriemontmartre.com $1400
yak by Kenana Knitters, hand-knitted by Kenyan women, from anthropologie.com $98
block-printed umbrella 180cm from rubystar.com $550
rangoli wool rug 125, 200 or 250cm by nanimarquina from huntervalleydesign.com.au
trumpet flower tiffin box, set of 2, from rubystar.com $52.90
festival rug from anthropologie.com 240x300 $998
circus tent from in my dreams, image by scarletbeautiful2 on etsy.com
cloudy spring vase by Angus and Celeste on hardtofind.com.au $69
barnwood hanging bed from anthropologie.com $2898
little love night light by Sage Design on hardtofind.com.au $38
Friday, November 30, 2012
love at first sight
This is the house that Herbie built. He built it in 1924, and being a plasterer by trade he spent many hours etching the finest details into the ceilings of every room. In the front bedroom, a ring of grapes on the vine with swallows and bees in each corner. In that very room his wife Josephine would later give birth to a son, then a daughter, then two baby girls in one night! One of those baby girls was named Lola, and she’s standing by the front gate in this photo. She went on to have her own children, and her son Randal married me. The day we first saw this house was the day I fell in love with it. To hear Lola tell it, I had ‘’stars in my eyes”. Perhaps they blinded me to the tobacco-stained wallpaper, the dry rot in the back wall, the mission brown paint that covered almost every surface, from skirting boards to kitchen cupboards. But I only saw the window seat, the camellias in the garden, the leadlight front door, and Herbie’s beautiful ceilings. And it wasn’t really about what I saw anyway. It was about what I felt.
I still feel that way, sixteen years and three children later. I love this house and I know she loves me. But I also love seeing other people’s houses, learning what makes them love their home and how they create their very own sense of place. Won’t you join me?
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