Tabla de contenidos para Spaces Volume 6 en Spaces Volume 6

“It’s funny – we moved to Brisbane, but ended up buying a Melbourne-style house. It’s very much like an old workers’ cottage.” CLAIRE RITCHIE AND DEAN ROMEO bought their house before they’d even set foot in it. “One of our really good friends went to the viewing and FaceTimed us,” Dean says. “We trusted her, and we were just like, ‘Let’s do it, it feels right.’” “We look for a vibe in a home more than anything – something that’s got a good feel, a good energy to it – and this place had that,” says Claire. Luckily, their instincts were spot-on, and the pair have been living in the 1950s house in Brighton, Queensland, for three years, with their two daughters, Mila and Freya, and Fox the dog. Relocating…

We had a very clear idea of what we wanted this house to be, and I think anybody can follow a similar path. Not everything here is perfect. There are little patches of wall that weren’t painted correctly. But the point is, you can’t look into a single corner of the house and not see something we’ve collected, or something we built, or a happy memory. That’s what makes a home. Like our coffee table. We were visiting some friends a few years ago – they’d just bought their first home in Bacchus Marsh – and we found this ’60s modular table in the local op shop. And now, whenever I look at it, I see my friends and their new home, and it makes me so happy.…

“I’ve always been into colour. Growing up, I’d get my mum to help me paint feature walls in my bedroom.” MURRAY MCINTYRE’S FAMILY HAS BEEN on the same cane farm in northern New South Wales for 120 years. His great-great-grandfather bought the farm in 1900, and since then every generation of the McIntyres has lived there. They’ve all made their mark on the house along the way, as have the current occupants. Sarah Walsh McIntyre moved up to the area from Sydney around 11 years ago, and met Murray through a colleague at work. At the time, his mum and dad were living in the house on the farm, and Sarah thought it “had a lot of character, but needed a lot of work”. It’s a house with quite a…

Alexandra’s father was an antiques dealer, and she was taught from an early age to surround herself with beautiful things. IN A QUIET VALLEY, JUST NORTH OF Bellingen, hidden among the gum trees, there’s an 87-acre property that belongs to artist Alexandra Mann. It’s an idyllic spot. Green paddocks roll away towards the distant hills. The forests are full of screeching galahs and chirping lorikeets. Penny lizards sun themselves on the porch. Far below, at the foot of the valley, a creek called Little Promised Land meanders towards the Never Never, which empties into Bellinger River and eventually runs all the way to the South Pacific. “That’s why we called the property Little Promised Land, after the creek,” Alexandra says. “It was perfect really. And it runs into the Never…

JANE TANGNEY IS A CAUTIOUS PERSON. “I’m normally very calculated,” she says. “I’m ordered.” But it was an uncharacteristic leap of faith that led to her and partner, Graeme Boyle, buying a house together. The moment came in the early 2000s when Jane was working as an artist and graphic designer in Fremantle. She and Graeme had only just started going out again, after dating briefly when they were younger. Things were going so well that Graeme felt bold enough to float an audacious idea. He’d recently been accepted to study ocean engineering in Tasmania and wanted Jane to go with him. The plan posed a few obvious challenges for her. She had built a solid painting career in Fremantle, along with a tight-knit community of fellow artists. “But I…

“After trying to lug way too much art around various rentals in Victoria, NSW and Queensland, I have found my most versatile decorating tool to be textiles. I have a stash of beautiful scarves, tea towels and large fabrics that can be hung easily onto rental walls with pins or clips as they aren’t heavy; they can cover large areas and won’t chip the paint if they fall down. They’re also easily transportable when moving from house to house. My current faves are Mirador sarongs and a NORTH painted scarf by Jane M Tipuamantumirri.” Edith “House plants have been another staple between rentals. For me, they provide an instant sense of home, and are companions to tend to, which feels especially important when you are fresh in a new place…

“There were some headaches trying to work out the right way to do things, but I love solving problems.” JC LEHUBY WAS TRAVELLING AROUND Australia in 2011 when he met Jennifer Hillhouse in Brisbane. He hadn’t intended to stay there. The plan had been to go on to New Zealand and perhaps end up in Canada – somewhere nice and cold, at least. But things don’t always go as expected; he and Jen have been together ever since. Along the way, they set up Vieille Branche, an arts and entertainment venue that sold vintage and antique furniture, which they ran until 2018. They also have a six-year-old daughter, Manou. That’s all lovely for JC, who’s from Normandy in northern France – except for one thing. “I said to Jen, ‘If…

SOME FOLKS SPEND FOREVER AND A DAY deciding which house to make their own – Jessica Clark and Dana Ashford bought their Port Adelaide apartment almost on a whim. Lazing at nearby Semaphore Beach one day in late 2015, and scrolling through real-estate listings for fun, the couple spotted the kind of apartment dreams are made of. Sure, it was slightly rundown. But beneath all that, they spied exposed brick walls, soaring ceilings, giant industrial beams and a cosy loft space. Turns out this grand two-storey apartment, built inside the original 1907 Dulux paint factory, was open for inspection that very afternoon. “And so we went – and put in an offer,” Jessica says. “We didn’t even know if we could borrow the money. I don’t know why we did…

You have to get the neighbours onside first: go door-knocking, do letterbox drops, explain what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. You need to talk to your local council, too. If a backyard gig explodes in the wrong way, it can really hurt professionals (like us) who do this stuff for a living. Sound is really important, so try to borrow some good quality audio gear. It makes all the difference. Ask the artists, ask friends, ask anyone you can think of. Make sure you outsource your toilets. No-one likes dealing with poo, and asking 250 people to share one bathroom is not an option. If you’re just starting out, don’t feed everyone. Have them pack their own picnic; bring some grog and snacks, get some cheese involved. You…

“We love having friends and family over. With kids, dogs and sand everywhere, it makes it feel like we are always on holiday.” DURING A HOLIDAY AT ANGLESEA IN the summer of 2007, Wendy and Fred Butterworth, with their two-year-old son Noah and soon-to-be-born Mia, stood staring at the real-estate window checking out all the beach houses for sale. “We saw one in the window that really caught our eye,” says Wendy. “There was an opening that day, so we went for a sticky beak.” It was love at first sight when the gang stepped into this retro shack with its light-filled rooms and ’70s charm, complete with apple green counter tops. “I remember us putting in a ridiculous offer with a 30-day settlement,” says Fred. A few days later,…

The house wasn’t always so full of plants and vintage furniture, and Anno wasn’t always such a plant collector. THE TOP-LOADING WASHING MACHINE IN Anno Leon’s house was there when he moved in 12 years ago. When it finally conked out last year, he bought a brand new one – a front loader this time. “It was a strategic move so I could put plants on top,” he says. A board over the sink is also covered in plants. The laundry, looking out over the backyard, gets loads of morning light, so it’s like a little greenhouse. “In most houses, it’s the room you don’t want to see,” says housemate Amy Magson, who has been sharing the three-bedroom terrace with Anno and his two cats, Mali and Miko, for a…

Draw your mural on the wall in chalk before you paint it. That way, you can play around with the balance and scale, and ensure you get it just right before committing it to the wall in paint. Keep the design simple, especially if it’s in a bedroom – it is your sleeping space, so you don’t want it to be too intense. Stick to repeated shapes and one colour to create an uplifting and happy vibe that’s still calming, so you can unwind in the space at the end of the day. Choose a wall that faces a doorway, so when you walk past you get a little peek of it through the door. This brings the mural into other parts of the house and means you get all…

BEFORE ELIZA ROGERS MOVED TO TASMANIA from Brisbane, she had a pretty clear idea of what her dream house would look like. “It was an old stone house in the countryside with a rambling rose around the doorway and maybe an orchard,” she says. Instead, since 2017, she’s been living in a ’70s Besser block three-bedroom townhouse in inner-city Hobart, with a small courtyard and nothing growing around the front door. There are heaps of indoor plants, though, including begonias that she grew from cuttings she was given from the botanic gardens in Hobart. “It’s totally silly to be able to say they came from there,” she says. Letting go of that rural dream wasn’t too hard, Eliza says. She and Frida, her Jack Russell-dachshund cross, had been living in…

If you’re apprehensive about colour, cushions, throws and pillowcases are a good way to introduce it. You don’t need to go full-on fluoro colour – lots of pieces I’ve chosen are brightly coloured but have a vintage tone about them, which is a bit softer. When I’m deciding what to put in a room, I look at the artwork on the walls and that will inform my choices. I tend to keep my furniture neutral – colour comes through artwork and textiles and books, which gives much more flexibility. Of course it’s easy to paint a wall, but time-consuming having to move everything out before you start – it’s much easier just to change a few artworks or cushions. Books are an underrated way of bringing in a bit of…

The whole point of the house is to live harmoniously with nature. I really tried to bring the outside in, and move our living spaces out. And anyone can do this. I don’t have any curtains on the windows, because I love being woken up by the natural light. We enlarged the windows for the same reason. The house is full of plants. There’s a bath on the verandah, there’s cooking outside, there’s a bed outside, there’s a sofa outside. You can have a bath in the pouring rain, under the stars. It makes the house feel a million times bigger.…

What do you do when you’re not working at the online furniture store? I spend all my spare time watching horror movies and reality TV while I work on my latest craft addiction. Where do you live? In a big four-bedroom sharehouse with yummy floorboards, high ceilings and a big concrete garden. I would say the house is probably 50 to 60 years old. Who else lives in your house? Claire, who bakes the best brownies, and David, who takes care of the front and back yards and has supplied us with freshly picked cherry tomatoes. We also share the yard with possums, an owl that pops by occasionally and a black neighbourhood cat who hates pats. How long have you lived there? About four and a half years. Where…

“Matt brought the practical stuff – like the couch – and my contributions were random things like a family of ornamental mice.” 2020 WAS A LOT OF THINGS, BUT FOR Melbourne couple Eishi Bandara and Matt Dwyer it was the year they set up house in the suburbs. Lured in by the size of the places they could score outside Melbourne’s inner city, the couple used Victoria’s lockdown to warm up an epic three-bedder that was by far the most roomy place they’ve ever lived in. “It was the size of the garden that got us,” Eishi says. “That and the proximity to both of our workplaces.” Matt, a primary school teacher, and Eishi, a junior doctor, met six years ago, but their Glen Waverley home is the first property…

It was really important to me to recycle a lot of the timber that was already there, whether it was from knocking down walls or from other parts of the house. There was nothing wrong with it, so it was good to be able to reuse it. I love finding old windows and reusing them – I like the idea of giving new purpose to an object. Most of the windows in the shack came from Gumtree and demolition yards. They’ve got history and character, and really added a lot to the feel of the place. Everything has to be right – if you have to do something again, you just do it. A bloke came to give me a hand to fit the big windows because I couldn’t manage…

Paint before you move in, to avoid the giant pain of moving all your furniture a second time. If the bathroom and kitchen are somewhat functional, you can make do with the rest being a temporary disaster zone. Live in the space for a bit before you start making changes – you might realise some things don’t need altering, or discover little problems that should take priority. Once you’re underway, dedicate one room to be the constant ‘neat and tidy’ space; a slice of sanity to retreat to when the chaos of elsewhere gets you down. Save up for things rather than going into debt, if you can. It’s OK to leave areas unfinished for months or even years. And when you’re ready to buy stuff, try to support good…

Going for a swim each morning as a family gave us routine and structure. This is where we met a wonderful group of people that we now swim with every morning, and socialise with. Noah and Fred are avid BMX riders and visit the local bike park pretty much every day. We have met some great people through the bike scene. Fred is also now a member of the bike committee and we volunteer at the local farmers market to raise funds for the bike park. Frequenting coffee shops is, of course, another great way to meet locals in a small town. The kids have met a great group of friends through their school, who they hang out with all weekend: swimming, bike riding, kayaking in the river and eating…

Go in with no expectations – that’s the first thing I’d say. Over time you develop a certain look or aesthetic that appeals to you – draw on that. Half the time I don’t know what I’m looking for, but my advice is, if you see something and it’s not expensive, just get it. Things come and go so quickly. If you end up not wanting one of your purchases yourself, you can always find someone to give it to as a present. Or you can sell it – that’s another good way of looking at things. With bigger, more expensive pieces, definitely take a bit of time to think before you buy.…

BEFORE TATTOOERS JOSH AND AVALON Todaro found their home in Victoria’s Dandenong Ranges, they’d just about given up hope. “People were saying, ‘Just get your foot in the door,’ or, ‘The right one will pop up,’ and it had never worked,” says Avalon. “Then this place was on the market for weeks, which was unheard of at the time. And no-one was interested. It was just me and one other family at the inspection. Josh hadn’t even seen it yet. I was like, ‘Err, do you want to come and have a look? I’ve already made an offer…’” “We low-balled them, big-time,” Josh laughs. “We just said, you know, you have no other offers. Here’s ours. You’ve got five days and then we’re pulling it. We were terrified it’d slip…

Rendering the Besser block was one of the best things I did. I used a sponge instead of a trowel, which was much easier, and used a DIY product from Bunnings. Painting the floor with garage paint can be a really easy way to change the look of a room. I have picture frames from all over, some of them very inexpensive, and have painted some with normal house paint or bathroom paint. A green one used to be silver. Changing door handles is a super cheap thing to do, and makes such a difference. I went to Country Leather, my favourite shop in Hobart, and had leather pulls made for all the wardrobe doors. I found a shoebox full of old wooden handles at a garage sale – they…

“I particularly collect stuff I remember I didn’t have as a kid – some of the games and things like that.” LISA PERKINS BEGAN COLLECTING WHEN she was a child, and has never stopped. It started with an Avon bubble bath container in the shape of a Japanese doll, which she still has. Michael Brady describes the place Lisa lived in when they first met as “very cluttered”; she prefers to say it was “carefully curated”. Luckily, their aesthetic is totally in line. “I grew up addicted to TV shows like The Partridge Family and The Brady Bunch,” says Lisa. “My favourite era is between 1965 and 1975. I’m not an obsessive collector, it’s definitely driven by sentimentality – I particularly collect stuff I remember I didn’t have as a…

“Having lived in quite a dark apartment, we were really keen for somewhere with plenty of natural light.” FOR EDITH REWA AND DYLAN BARFIELD, no stint in Brisbane would be complete without calling a Queenslander home. “My first impressions of this house were of light, space, sunshine and just the feeling of the place,” says Edith. “I could imagine us living here straightaway.” Built in 1910, this traditional Queensland house, which the pair found on Gumtree, had all its original features – untouched bathroom tiles, classic window-seat alcove, lounge archway and decorative ceiling mouldings. Their new home was a far cry from the couple’s previous dwelling – a rental flat in the inner-city suburb of Highgate Hill, surrounded by rainforest trees, bush turkeys and green tree snakes. Self-confessed ‘newbies’ to…

“Look every day.” Eishi recommends hitting up your chosen pre-loved platform once or twice a day, because, like an op shop in real life, new things are always popping up. “Get a mate to help you out.” Got a friend who’s just as into sourcing secondhand? Eishi rates telling a mate what she’s after just in case they stumble upon it during one of their own searches. “Know your search terms.” Setting up alerts that notify you of items tagged with your most-used search terms is a great way of saving time. For Eishi, “kitsch homewares” is on high rotation. “Don’t let location get you down.” Can’t get a set of wheels to pick something up? Think laterally – hire a truck, send a courier or book an Uber. “Don’t…

“I couldn’t even go into another room and read a book for five minutes. The kids were like battery hens, with nowhere to play.” COCO LOVE SHEILS MAKES A LIVING FROM styling up one-of-a-kind spaces – everything from houses and shops to windows and stages. As a conceptual artist and seasoned op-shopper, she’s perfected the art of creating a vibe from preloved pieces, often while wearing a tiara, tutu and wand. She calls it “the Coco effect”. Her greatest joy, she says, is “transporting people to somewhere other than everyday life. My spaces are my canvas”. With such a pull to transform a room, it’s no surprise that her biggest project yet – the Hotel de Love – used to be an old workers’ shed. Sixteen years ago, she started…

ONCE A YEAR, EVERY YEAR, SHARNI Honor’s little cottage in Kingston Park, SA, transforms into a low-key music festival called The Porch Sessions. The crowd trickles in at twilight: families, kids, music fans, Adelaide hipsters, old friends and curious neighbours carrying food. Bands park their vans in the street outside. Roadies assemble sound gear on the backyard porch, which sits near the fence at the end of the garden. Meanwhile, her chunky blue heeler, Craig, starts working the crowd, doing laps and causing any unguarded sausage rolls to mysteriously disappear. “He goes into full-on primal snack mode,” Sharni says. “He’s a snack assassin during gigs. I don’t see him for the whole night. He just does laps around the backyard, looking pathetic and begging food off people.” Sharni founded The…

I’m not of the opinion that living with friends or colleagues will “ruin everything”. I think that’s kind of bullshit. I’ve lived with a lot of people – multiple houses with five and six people – and my biggest tip for making it work is just not to let the little things consume you. While it might be really easy to lose your shit over dishes not being done, or being the one who always takes the bins out, it’s better to suck that stuff up for the greater good of the house, because otherwise it can become quite toxic. There is a line, but sometimes you need to stop yourself from airing those small grievances that are actually quite insignificant, and think about the bigger picture first. No-one’s perfect,…

IVY NIU’S CLOTHING LABEL CELEBRATES the bright and bold, injecting a zap of fun with mood-boosting colours and illustrated shapes. Her home in the outer suburbs of Brisbane, and close to a lake, is an extension of this cheerful aesthetic. She shares what she calls the “cookie cutter” three-bedroom house from the early ’90s with her husband, Max, who works full-time as a graphic designer while co-running the fashion label with her. The other two occupants are Peanut, their sassy dachshund-chihuahua cross, and Naru, their rescue labrador puppy. After meeting at art school in New Zealand, Ivy and Max moved to Australia six years ago. Before buying their own home they lived in a small rental flat, then shared with Max’s parents for a while. After the long stint in…