Back to the 1950s - a before and after

I was hunting through our renovation reciepts this morning and found these amazing old photos from The State Library of our house the year it was built in 1954! So I thought I would do abit of a before and after post! Our beautiful kitchen designed by John & Phyllis Murphy in the 1950s above with the servery and now below as one big open space, how life changes. Recently the son of Phyllis sent me a letter after seeing our house in Inside Out Magazine and I was very excited at the thought that she had seen the renovation and hope that she thought that we have done the house proud. 

And below the old built in stereo, how fantastic that would have been, unfortunately it was long gone when we brought the house, and the underneath shot, after the renovation and the whole stereo wall was removed to create a more open space. 

Our beautiful Wisteria tree, above in 1954 and below about a year ago, it is still going strong and now covers the whole front deck, we were worried during the renovation and the deck building but she has  survived the builders well.

These stunning recent shots of our house where taken by Sharyn Cairns. And our renovation was designed by the very talented Emma Tulloch of Nixon Tulloch Fortey Architecture. I hope your having a great Thursday! x

Velvet and Linen what a perfect combination!

Perfect timing, with the weather cooling down I have been thinking about abit more layering needed for the bed and our stunning new Velvet coverlets have just arrived! These are beautiful, a lush black luxurious Cotton Velvet on the front with a large pure Linen border, hand stitched with a natural top stitch. I know im sounding like a sales pitch but i just love them and have to take one home this weekend to survive our cold Melbourne weather! Have a lovely weekend everyone and hope you like the new shots x

Weekend Tea Cosy inspiration

This weekend I was greatly inspired, yet again, by my very talented Mother in law and her amazing nibble fingers at the age of 86. Above are a collection of her Tea Cosies she has made, some patterns are from the crafty goddess, or as she calls herself the "Tea Cosy Queen" Loani Prior and her books Wild Tea Cosies. You can check out Loani's very colourful and entertaining Blog Grand Purlbaa here and her books and other Tea Cosy books here.  

The inspiration of the Great Ocean Road

Last weekend we ventured out of town and drove down the Great Ocean Road to visit some amazing places, sometimes you forget how beautiful your own country is with our desires to travel overseas for adventure! Above is the stunning landscape of the limestone cliffs at the 12 Apostles, there is a fantastic walk that goes along the great southern ocean itself, read more here.  I just love the colours and the movement of the grasses and the abundant ground covers.

Below the beautiful Melba Gully, with the largest Tree Ferns I have ever seen and the most amazing tones of greens. There was slight emotion when we walked through the lush, tropical rainforest to our destination "The Big Tree" but to our distress the Big Tree is no longer - only the huge trunk laying on its side in the silent rainforest.

Those that know me would know that this is a big deal to me - I have a rather large fear of heights and the Otway Fly Tree Top adventure was out to test this fear of mine big time. But unlike the swinging wooden bridges in Peru, that completely freaked me out, this is a beautiful canopy walk that is a 600 mt long very sturdy metal structure that felt incredibly safe. The views where spectacular walking amongst the tree tops you could stop and hear the huge trees sway in the wind at 25-30 metres above the rainforest floor - from the ground you would never realise just how much these huge Mountain Ash

move in the wind. Apparently the walk is the longest and highest of its kind in the world able to withstand winds up to 280 km/h - luckily we didnt have to test that! 

Heartbreak as we get to Timboon and the sign says "Sorry we are closed" I was looking forward to visiting Timboon Cheese but for those of you that would like to know it closes at 4pm! The shots above are of the wonderful manucured gardens - I remember visiting years ago and sitting for hours in the garden nibbling on some of their spectacular cheese. Hopefully we will go back when it is open again one day. 

Moonlight Escape

We had the pleasure of staying for 4 fabulous nights at the wonderful Moonlight Escape at Moonlight Head, near Johanna on the Great Ocean Road in Victoria last weekend. Moonlight Escape was designed by Glen Murcutt, this amazing house has the most beautiful natural light that streams in through multiple "saw tooth" angled skylights and wide glass windows that look out at the 10 - yes we counted 10 kangaroos who feed and play each morning and afternoon outside the master bedroom - hours of entertainment for our dog! It was a very relaxing stay and we where also spolit by moody floor lighting, Vola taps, that I have always wanted at home and Gaggenau appliances, that I now want at home! Have a look here for more images. 

A perfect Weekend in the country.

Here I am doing my favorite past time, reading fabulous cooking mags getting inspiration on what to cook the boys over the long weekend we are blessed with in Victoria. We are lucky enough to be staying near the 12 Apostles in Yuulong at Moonlight Escape, the most amazing house! I will show you some shots of the house soon but trying my hand at my first post from the iPad - which is not the easiest thing in the world! Hope you are having a great weekend. OMG just managed to change the size of my image - that is pretty exciting to me not being very technically savvy! X

New Winter Catalogue online now

Heres a sneak peak at our brand new Autumn/Winter 2011 catalogue that we have just added online - you can check it out here. I hope you enjoy it - we are very proud of once again producing a beautiful masterpiece of a catalogue, and yes I am biased. Thank you to all of the wonderful creative people who where involved - well done to all and I would love to hear your feedback, leave me a comment to let me know what you think, Tracie x

Atelier Abigail Ahern

The legendary and incredibly inspirational Abigail Ahern featured our new Inka bedlinen on her beautiful blog today! What an absolute honor to be featured by one of the worlds "coolest" interior designers! Thank you Abigail!!! 

The beautiful Copenhagen

In January I was lucky enough to visit Copenhagen, I was pretty excited as even though it was a work visit I had never been to Denmark before and had heard so much about this beautiful city. The first evidence of Copenhagen was in 1043 but even before this time where the Vikings! The above image is along the Nyhavn Canal which is a simply gorgeous setting, the colours of the buildings are incredibly inspirational - I had only seen images of Copenhagen in the Summer so the snow was an interesting element added to our visit - rubber souls where necessary (yes I know that now!). 

The above are more shots of the beautiful Nyhavn Canal, full of traditional little restaurants where you head downstairs into the warmth and comfort of the open fires and a nice big glass of Red! 

 

The piles of snow doesnt stop the glamour in Copenhagen! The Louis Vuitton store in Ostergade was glowing a warm shade of orange into the dark wintry streets.

The fabulous Day Birger store above was a pleasure to visit, even in sale time! The tiny cobbled streets of Copenhagen where just beautiful and an absolute must to explore. With an array of fabulous homewares and design shopping, the Danish are an exceptional styish bunch and such nice people! I would love to go back in Summer as I am sure the experience would be a much different one.

Shades of Grey in Belle

Thank you Belle Magazine for featuring us in their brand new Issue in this lovely Shades of Grey shot - its pretty dark and moody but thats our new Ankita Natural and Inka Smoke pillowcases staring!! 

Hanging Baskets - are there any cool ones???

Amazing climbing plant Trellis from Terrace Outdoor Living. 

Now heres a couple of lovely hanging baskets. 

Or go all the way and spend the cash on this unique and fabulous macrame hanging basket, found some interested versions on macrame hanging baskets on Etzy....like this quite cute one below which is a hand woven hanging wall or door basket.!

The craze of indoor plants has hit me, my lovely mother in law has given me a Hoya plant and I have been wondering where and what to get to make it look cool? Its not that easy finding good looking hanging pots I tell you! I have found many a website/blog that tells you how to make these adorable flash backs from the 60's like this one here - Make a wild hanging basket- but not so many on how to actually buy something that doesnt look like its out of granny's fernery or that you cant put fruit in, although the red vintage tiered wire hanging fruit basket above is pretty cute.