Hip, cool and clever. Matt Woods again? No this time I’m talking about his design for Avido. Macramé on the ceiling (a Sarah Parkes piece), old brick walls balanced by warm timber counters, slashes of colour and an eclectic collection of classic furniture. Avido means greedy and I’m certainly eager to use some of these ideas in my own home. Photos by Will Reichelt.

One to watch. New kid on the block. Rising star. Top 10 Forces and Faces. OTT with the hyperbole? I don’t think so. Matt Woods is definitely a name to bookmark. This Sydney designer is turning up in all the best design mags and being shortlisted for design awards. The look is eclectic with a balance of raw and minimal, his approach about sustainability and adaptive re-use. Think gritty city meets cool way to live. First up today this Enmore, Sydney house. The renovation of this old terrace included the kitchen and bathroom. Love the recycled timber as wall cladding, the Moroccan riff to the bathroom and the Henry Pilcher Block 2 pendant. Next up will be a Woods designed restaurant. Photos by Chris Corboy.

I’m real estate stalking in Surry Hills in Sydney… again. Honestly I think I should just move into this suburb! Choice of two apartments today, both in the same recently refurbished warehouse. Now which one should I buy. Number 1, a two storey two bed or number 2, another two bed but on one floor? Decisions decisions. Links here and here while they last.

Across the freight train line in the bad part of town an old garage has a new lease on life. Abandoned and derelict it now houses a studio and living space as well as an open courtyard. A rough and ready building offering a well considered use as home or workspace. By Atlanta architects Brian Bell and David Yoachim of bldgs.

Tricia Rose believes in spirit of place, and after having homes in Sydney, London and the Var in France, she now is cozily ensconced in an old hunting cabin built over the water of San Francisco Bay.

“Even though the cabin has dictated everything about the décor, it has been through many changes,” Tricia says.  “Structural improvements of course, and new bathrooms, but I seem always to be stripping something away, like the drywall over the old clapboard, or the nasty popcorn ceilings taken away completely to raise them to the rafters.  I seem to paint every couple of years too, a thrilling Iron-Bru orange in the main room gave way to a tamer South-West tan, then pale gray and currently, dark tannin-stained planking.”

Most of the year Tricia and her husband Stefan eat outside on the deck overlooking the bay.  The outlook is constantly changing, with high and low tide, all the birds, and the volatile cloudscape over Mount Tam.

“This is like playing house, or being in a beach house all year round,” says Tricia.  “ I use my own simple linens – of course! – and I am so happy to be integrating work and living like this.  Roughlinen.com is totally internet based so we can even travel – but we always love coming home.”

Tricia’s Rough Linen line was inspired by homespun bedding she found while clearing her grandmother’s cottage in Scotland, and her simple, rustic duvets and shams now are complemented by Smooth White Linen sheets woven to Tricia’s specification to have a good heft to them, “Like Italian sheets,” she says.