Stalking a beautifully renovated art deco era apartment in Sydney’s Rushcutters Bay. Open flow living and dining with clever wrap around kitchen. Sunny, bright and all white the space is warmed by the use of timber benchtops with a dash of red in the backsplash as focus. Everything is sleek and clean lined with minimal furniture and art. Something annoys me though. The large piece of leather carelessly wrapped around the couch. Deliberate wabi sabi? Haven’t sent the couch out to be upholstered yet? Forgot to straighten it before the photo shoot? It’s driving me crazy in the otherwise zen like apartment. Link here while it lasts.

An old apartment given a fresh new “do”. Vintage furniture sits happily with polished concrete floors while lighting old and new defines the different zones. It’s bright and fresh, bursting with personality and a just little irreverent. Love the wall of Tretchikoff and David Lynch ladies. Secretly though I would sell my soul for the blue Murano dragon’s tears chandelier. Sigh! A fun apartment makeover by interior design studio Anatomy Design. Based in Johannesburg, South Africa the design duo of Andrea Kleinloog and Megan Hesse has hit just the right balance between high kitsch and high style.

Just because. Photography by Julia Hoersh, styling by Andreas Lichtenstein.

I love a Queensland home. History and grace and a sense of place. Whether the typical timber and tin Queenslander, a gingerbread Federation style or the local version of the California Bungalow (it appears California colonised large tracts of between wars Australia… who would have thought?), these homes are sort after by families in my part of the world. Lovely as they are they do not lend themselves to modern family life though. Faced with a warren of small rooms and generations of unsympathetic renos, home owners want open plan family living, dining and kitchen, extra bathrooms, car parking and swimming pools, decks for al fresco living. What to do? Often our inner city homes are demolished and a contemporary house constructed that bulges over the site and dwarfs the neighbours, changing the streetscape, imposing its “newness”. Today I thought I’d share two homes that have been extended and renovated by Brisbane based Dion Seminara Architecture. Charming old homes now just right for modern family living still with a sense of history and place.

I must admit before I go on that I did not find this fantasy time capsule of a home. Oh no there are other hard core real estate stalkers out there in the internets who email, tempt me, show me things I shouldn’t see. (Thanks Alison!) Welcome to a retrolicious dream home. Oh my! How OTT! How bad taste! How perfect! Like stepping back into an uppers/downers and martini fuelled technocolour, freak show trip. Lattice patterned mirror walls, wall to wall synthetic carpet, a sunken conversation pit that would be right at home in Palm Springs, a stone bathroom and a kitchen that just leaves me gasping. There is even an electric organ! This place is so hot thank goodness there is a pool to jump into to cool down. Even better it’s not for sale. It’s for rent… furnished… move right in… just bring the booze and the Pucci bell bottom pantsuit. I feel an uncontrollable urge to back tease my hair, slather on the eyeliner and slide into my marabou slippers. Perhaps Elvis will drop round when he is finished his shift at the 7-Eleven. See I’m rambling! This lovingly refurshibed 70’s home in Caulfield North, Melbourne is obvious the lair of a retro collector and it could be yours, if just for a little while. Link here if you want to sign the lease.