Modern Mediterranean

Flooring

On her first ever trip to Australia, Stephanie Davies (owner of La Boheme Lifestyle) visited the NSW Central Coast with her husband Nikolas Davies (owner of ND Skin) and they decided to stay. The Scottish couple purchased their current North Avoca home in 2015, which has recently undergone a massive transformation designed by Fabric Architecture and Studio Highfield, with builder Hudson Lane.Taking inspiration from villas in Italy and Spain, the updated house incorporates textures, curves, and unique forms, creating a truly one-of-a-kind family home!A career opportunity saw Stephanie Davies, owner of La Boheme Lifestyle, and Nikolas Davies, owner of ND Skin, move to Australia in 2014. It was supposed to be just a two year stint, but nine years later, the couple are still here with their children Marlowe Rose (9) and Zanna Dawson (6).Stephanie and Nikolas rented in Terrigal, before purchasing their own home in North Avoca in 2015. They’ve made some changes to the property over the years, starting with a makeover of the pool area, before a recent major transformation of the ground floor.Continue reading…

La Palma

Flooring + Walling

This tiered seaside escape nestled amongst palm trees in Sydney’s Northern Beaches taps into carefree sun-dappled adventures along remote Mexican shores with a twist of the Côte d’Azur’s refinement.The provocative chords of Director Yasmine Saleh Ghoniem’s imagination have garnered countless design accolades over almost twenty years.Made up of a multinational team of architects and interior designers YSG Studio’s immersive approach to sculpting spaces for private residences plus the hospitality and commercial sectors is realised through the creation of abundant elements.These elements consider everything from joinery to individual furnishing pieces, from craft to truly inimitable solutions that cohesively connect all interior aspects.Continue reading….

Macmasters Escape

Flooring + Walling

When James Headland of Pangkarra was engaged to transform this garden in Macmasters Beach, on the NSW Central Coast, he was tasked with bringing nature back into the home. An existing lawn with box hedges and tropical plants was uninspiring, and was completely at odds with the native landscape close to Bouddi National Park.Drawing on his understanding of the area as a local resident, James designed a predominantly native scheme with various zones to suit the sloping site and future of the young family owners.Inspiration was drawn everywhere, from the native planting to bush walks on the escarpment. The structure of the garden roughly transitions from a wetter riparian zone before a drier pool area at the property’s highest point. Continue reading…

Motel Molly

Flooring

With its sun-soaked pastel facade and curved pool rimmed with sage-and-white striped umbrellas, guests arriving at Motel Molly would be forgiven for thinking they’d been transported to Palm Springs or stepped into a Slim Aarons photograph.It’s a far cry from the property’s past life as a run-of-the-mill motel and holiday rental — and a welcome designer addition to Mollymook’s thriving hotel scene. Located just three hours from Sydney on the New South Wales South Coast, the newly reimagined 16-room hotel has all of the benefits of its laid-back seaside location with a distinct faraway feel. And that’s exactly what interior design and architecture firm Richards Stanisich set out to achieve. Zellige-clad sunken baths are reminiscent of Moroccan riads, powder blue longboards channel Malibu vibes and the pastel exterior evokes the sorbet-coloured coastline of Cinque Terre. Continue reading…

Windsor Herritage

Flooring

Property developer, urbanist and shopkeeper Linda Gregoriou cannot understand why you’d go for a Hamptons look if you don’t live in the Hamptons. Or why you’d have a formal parterre garden out the front of a simple worker’s cottage. She is obsessed with sense of place: with identifying and then respecting the unique set of qualities and characteristics that make a place what it is. It’s as if knowing where you are helps you know who you are. ‘What does it mean to be Australian? It’s a question I ask myself all the time,” said Gregoriou. And you can’t find the answer in chain stores that could be anywhere in the world.Growing up in the beachside Melbourne suburb of Brighton with a Cypriot-Greek father and an Anglo mother descended from the well-known West Australian Sharpe pastoral family, Gregoriou has always known being Australian could be many things.She was called a wog, even though her mother’s family had been in Australia since 1840. She looked like a Cypriot, but didn’t identify with a lot of the migrant families around her because her father had moved to Australia to attend Melbourne University.“I was kind of in no man’s land, not an Anglo-saxon or a migrant.”Read more….

Dean House

Flooring

A family home in Sydney is given a fresh makeover for a new generation.When designer and maker Dani Dean took on a sentimental family project, both her creative compass and her heart were on the line.Dani Dean has known her home on Sydney's Northern Beaches forever, even though she only bought it six years ago. "It was my grandma's house," she says."It's been in my family since I was a little girl. Growing up, I spent weekends with my nan. She was extremely important to me. I had been in every nook of her house."Because of this, Dani always had lots of design ideas for it. The 1970s red-brick home was originally "like a Brady Bunch house", before Dani and her husband James embarked on a nine-month renovation.Read more…

Castlecrag House

Flooring

Through a process of reduction, Castlecrag House takes the less common path of subtracting elements and refining what remains. Polly Harbison Design brings a sense of clarity and purpose to a confused home of grand proportions, distilling spatially a sense of clarity through a natural flow and connection to the unique landscape setting. Nestled into its own dense bush landscape milieu, Castlecrag is located in the suburb of its namesake, and was inherited as a mammoth family home. Previously home to a family of ten children, the remaining structure had seen plenty of earned use and still remained unfazed. In order to align with a revised brief and create a home more connected to its site, a less familiar path was adopted, taking away from instead of adding to the whole. From its base, the structure remained uncompromised, and its scale allowed the ideal base from which to carve from, opening and punctuating to create key connections between inside and out, while still retaining the original core of the home. Polly Harbison Design transforms the post-war home through a revised plan and the injection of a series of spatial connections that directly relate to the site and surrounding landscape.Read more…

Wahroonga House

Flooring

Liana Shaw-Taylor, senior designer at Tone Studio, and James Shaw-Taylor, creative director for digital signage company Mandoe, spent years living in Sydney’s inner-eastern suburbs, but always knew they’d move north to Wahroonga to raise a family. After missing out on a nearby property at auction, Liana came across another house probably out of their price range, that she decided to inspect anyway.‘I walked in and fell in love with the elevated view from the lounge. The trees! The quiet! We offered the owners an amount before the auction and they accepted! Couldn’t believe it,’ she says.Liana and James engaged interior designers Tom Mark Henry to contemporise the space, without detracting from the home’s original mid-century sensibilities. Special attention was paid to maintaining original features such as the timber panelled ceilings and fabulous metal support beams throughout, and repurposing materials wherever possible. For instance, bricks salvaged on site were painstakingly cleaned by the family, to re-use for a modest new extension which now accommodates a new main bedroom and en suite. Read more…

Point Piper

Decor

Lorraine Tarabay’s eyes shine when the conversation turns to art and the design provenance of her heritage-listed home overlooking the diamond sparkle of the harbour in Sydney’s Point Piper. Tarabay, along with husband Nick Langley, is the owner of one of Australia’s most significant international contemporary art collections. And her immaculate, sunlit six-bedroom residence is a high temple of inspiration, exquisite craftsmanship and creativity — and not only because of the art on show, but also because of the furniture and design she chooses to surround herself with. A keen champion of Australian and, in particular, female artists, Tarabay, a former investment banker, sits on the board of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA).Read more…

Feature Projects

Modern Mediterranean

La Palma

Macmasters Escape

Motel Molly

Windsor Herritage

Dean House

Castlecrag House

Wahroonga House

Point Piper

FLOORING

WALLING