Industrial edge softened with warm timber antiques mixed with
retro delights and a splash of colour just to make things interesting...

Description to follow shortly

Description to follow shortly

Having bid a sad farewell to our tuscan winery we set our minds to finalising another room
before Christmas in pure modernist form (completely opposite to the rustic warmth of our
12th room).













Maybe it was a bit of a shock being too different to our previous room or maybe we'd left it a little
late in the year, but our 14th room failed to meet expectations. We seemed to love it but the response
wasn't so great. The chest of drawers that had been sitting half done in Maria's laundry for the past
4 years had finally been finished and proved to be the most popular item in the room (we've since
realised why as we've tried and tried to find another set for client's but the are almost extinct in this
form). The redesigned, converted desk worked beautifully as a centre piece and also sold fairly easily.
The everyinch trademark tripod made an appearance once again and was snapped up as usual, but the
stunning restored and recovered white armchair didn't seem to generate a lot of interest so Rachael
snapped that one up pretty quickly (and since appears in some of our styling projects along with the
white antique school chairs).














With 2010 at a close we began a long deserved break and finally learned how to relax.

Inspired by an Italian interior we'd seen in a magazine we set ourselves the goal
of creating a space that felt like a rustic vineyard.... a warm space to sit and sip wine.












Maria's obsession with multipurpose boxes began about 15 years ago when she used
to visit Japanese style cafes in Melbourne laneways on her lunch break and sit on
stools made from plywood boxes. She loved the fact that they could be sat on, used
as tables or stacked for wall units. With a small collection of her own vintage boxes
scattered around her house used for all sorts of storage needs, she was taken back
in awe when she spotted an Italian interior using similar boxes. A quick phone call
(well they're never really that quick) to Rachael (who religiously purchases the
same magazine) got the creative juices going and set Rachael on a mission to find
as many boxes as possible. We found 40 vintage boxes in Melbourne and 40 in rural
Victoria that all matched which would be perfect for our vision.... the only problem
now was attaching them together as they were slightly smaller than our original idea
and needed to be fixed together to ensure they were going to be safe stacked. A trip to
Bunnings and an extremely helpful salesperson (who are rare and almost extinct) we
came back with an extraordinary amount of brackets, screws and a new drill. We
proceeded to fix the boxes together in the configuration we'd designed (that took
probably 5 times longer that we had originally anticipated) and put them in place.
Our room was starting to take shape.












We'd purchased an extremely heavy duty trestle table shortly after we sold an antique
trestle table 12 months earlier and found another shortly after that in Queensland that
had been delivered with other items for our previous room. We decided we probably
didn't need to hold onto both and one of them would fit in our vineyard room perfectly.
The legs had been previously painted in a mid brown so we decided to paint them
black to give the table a freshen up.... little did we know that this would start a revolution
of black legged trestle tables appearing in their hundreds (well, not quite) on ebay.












The black antique cafe chairs, that also traveled down from Brisbane, were kindly hand
painted by Stu to match the black legs of the trestle table and looked simply stunning
around the amazing looking trestle table (we were really starting to not want to let it go).
Maria's Nana's black cupboard that was used in our 8th room and hadn't sold looked
just perfect at the end of the room... Combined with the industrial chair, a rustic antique
table and 2 antique painted stools, this room was quickly becoming our favourite and
our hardest to part with so far....

With all the the "big" names included (well at least some of them anyway) we took on our
10th room head on.












We'd purchased a Fler Narvik suite from Queensland a few months back that had been sitting
in Rachael's parents shed in Brisbane since, along with some other little gems that we were
keen to actually see in person.... it was time to get it all down to Melbourne. Much to our
surprise it arrived a couple of days later. The lounge suite had been painted white so off it
went to the paint strippers. We expected it to come back requiring a "light" sand but alas
a far more decent sand was required. We'd decided to replace the cane back and after getting
a few quotes we thought.... how hard could it be to do it ourselves?? Well, really very hard
and extremely time consuming but we did it in the end. The cushions were replaced and
upholstered in a rich black pure wool to contrast with the frame and light coloured cane.












The Parker dining suite had been in storage for a few years bar one chair. Maria had purchased
3 of the chairs in a bulk purchase with a sideboard and found 2 more chairs in Shepparton so
proceeded to do a road trip with her then 4 year old daughter. The table came from down on
the Mornington Peninsula (another road trip.... lucky we have friends all over the state to pop
in and see to break up the driving a bit). We were going to just do 4 chairs with the setting
but then luckily came across a 6th chair in a shop in Northcote at the last minute so it quickly
was restored to match the rest and voila!!!!












One of the most time consuming jobs was the restoration of the Noblett coffee table (for its
size anyway) which Maria's husband decided to take on. One day after she'd been running
around getting supplies she came home to a very proud husband that had nearly finished
sanding the top. Looking down she noticed he'd been sanding with the orbital sander and kinda
freaked a little (in the most calm way possible as the help was actually really appreciated) with
Jup calmly saying "I thought it was solid wood on top!" Luckily no harm was done and it came
up beautifully (maybe we should use an orbital sander more often rather than hand sanding....).

A quick lick of paint on the low sideboard (well not very quick at all, but thanks to our in-house
painter it seemed quite quick for us considering we only had to sand and polish the edges and
feet) and a quick re-veneer of the top of the larger sideboard (once again done by a professional
so as quick as it may have seemed for us, it probably wasn't for him) and the room was done.

Yay.... we reached double figures and don't hate each other yet.... and actually still are loving
bringing together each and every room.












We decided to break our seemingly trademark black and go for a more feminine appeal....
white & linen....












We'd purchased a full bedroom suite long ago and Rachael had been using it in her room after
Maria simply said.... "that cane dresser is revolting... get rid of it!!!" Rachael had been searching long
and hard for a bedhead that looked similar to Maria's one she found years ago and restored for hire
(there was no way Rachael was getting her hands on that one), finally finding a slightly similar one
(she still wants the hire one). So it was time to rotate and finally set up a Danish inspired bedroom.












We wanted the bedroom to be soft and fresh but with a modern appeal.... The bedroom suite
on its own looked a little lost in the vast space of the studio so we set ourselves a mission to find
complimentary things that work well in a serene environment. We had a few things lying around
(as usual, considering Maria has been hoarding furniture ever since she could walk & talk).













We freshened up an old drawing board (that was shoved in Maria's mum & dads cupboard and taking
up far too much space) by attaching a new top. As Maria was taking the long walk from the carpark
at Holmesglen to start a very long day of teaching, she came across two table frames that were in the
dumpster and quickly ran to the gatehouse, grabbed her car and proceeded to attempt to fit them in the
back. After much pulling and pushing she finally fit them in when she spied a lab stool frame, ran over
and in her excitement, yanked on it far too hard, whacking herself in the chin and chipping her two front teeth.... being careful that no-one saw, she gained composure and quickly drove off pretending nothing had happened. Well, to cut a long story short.... the base was painted white and a new
matching top to the drawing board was placed on.























The bench seat at the end of the bed was made by Maria, using some existing legs she never threw out
and upholstered in a beautiful oatmeal coloured wool. Upholstering the armchair to match we now had
all the main elements needed to put it all together.























The bedroom came up beautifully and we fell in love with it straight away.... if only our own bedrooms
looked so lovely (and we didn't have husbands that don't quite go with the stunning white linen)....