My husband and I have been in our home located in WA for six years now after having built it, and little by little we have put it together. Our home is a mix of rustic country, Tuscan, provincial, and Debbie – that’s me!
I started with the kitchen where originally there was a door leading directly out into the garage – I changed that and had the kitchen design changed to include the rangehood and benchtop cooker with a seperate wall oven.
Then a couple of years ago I wanted the kitchen to have more of a ‘country’ feel to it and had all the doors changed and the original open shelving each side of the rangehood turned into a wine rack on one side and two little French doors put on the other side. I then had the original house tiler return and add a black lip around the top of the bench tiles. The new tapware was purchased from The Kitchen and Bathroom Warehouse. Lastly, to finish the look, a rustic looking chandelier from Beacon lighting was installed.
I have kept all the main pieces of wooden furniture uniform through the kitchen, family room, dining room and cinema room. All this was purchased from At Home. Most of the decorative pieces and all of the wrought iron was purchased from The Complete Garden. Recollections is another store visited often and most of the old-fashioned lights were brought back from visits to family back in Tasmania from a store called Reliquaire in Latrobe.
Also when putting my home together I wanted to take the inside out and bring the outside in. I developed a love of this concept from the time I spent living in the Philippines. The home I lived in was very open with lots of foliage inside.
The outdoor area has only recently been re-done. The alfresco area was not being utilised so shade blinds were placed on both open sides to stop majority of rain and wind coming in – and some banana leaf furniture was purchased from Classique, with an outdoor wicker table and chairs set from Archipeligo. A black chandelier was purchased from Tilly's Lighting to light up the patio area and lastly, the sliding doors were taken out and bi-fold doors put in to really open up the house and bring inside and outside together.
My favourite piece in the entire home is an old mantle clock passed down to me by my dad from my grandparents. The clock chimes on the quarter hour with the Westminster chime and every time I hear it, it brings back memories of my childhood.
I would say the style of my home is an eclectic mix of country, French and Tuscan. When putting my home together I wanted to create a space that felt warm and welcoming, where you could come in and put your feet up and relax; whether you are sitting in a comfy wingback chair in front of the fire, or in the cool shady area of the alfresco.