Home Tour

Welcome to our home!  As promised, these are the photos our real estate agent had taken by a lovely photographer, who also stages homes for sale.  You can click on each photo to see them bigger.

I loved seeing her ideas and also first-hand how important a 'pop of colour' is in pulling together a room and giving it zing (I am converted from being a purely neutrals girl now). An example of one of her ideas is in the photo above, on the hall table in our entrance way, she grouped together those bits and pieces (French candlestick, gourd-shaped ornament, bust and gold spray-painted pinecone) because I had them spread along the table.  It looked much better in a compact group than dotted along.

This is our sunny kitchen.  We were asked to display a fruitbowl, so we got all our fruit out of the fridge where we usually store it (excluding bananas) to make a lush bowl of goodness.  She hid our kettle because it is white plastic.  The stainless steel toaster and knives were stylish enough to pass the test!  That's our pantry in the corner and I made sure it is nice and tidy for everyone taking a peek inside it.

We have sheer curtains in the living room because I love the privacy and light-filtering when you have neighbours over every fence and all the fences are quite close to your house.  (Welcome to the big city; why do you think we want to move to a small town and live semi-rurally?  Our dream is to not be able to see or hear any neighbours.  Imagine the bliss of that.)  But for photos and open homes, they like all curtains including sheers open so that as much light and sun possible can get in.

The only props our photographer/stager brought for our house were throw rugs and coloured cushions, like the yellow and black ones in our living area above.  She also added a karitane yellow candle holder to the tray on the coffee table, which already held my beloved Italian globe (wooden in a gold-ish hue, $10 from the Salvation Army op-shop and it had a barely-sticking, fragile 'Made in Italy' sticker on the base.  It was love at first sight; I do love a good globe) and a white metal fleur de lys.

After she had photographed our house my husband and I both exclaimed that we loved the mustardy-yellow touches she had put with our warm stone-grey sofa, so we decided to go on a cushion hunt.  We were only shopping at bargain places though; she actually advised that, that you could get lovely cushions for little money.

So we shopped at The Warehouse and K-Mart and sadly yellow was not a colour that was around much, so we opted for plum, and bought four different cushions with plum tones and two black cushions.  This went along with her theme of two black cushions and four different yellow cushions.  If it was me I would have chosen pairs of cushions but I love that I was introduced to her way.  It looks cohesive but not too matchy.

All up we spent $52 for six cushions, which we were very happy with.  And, going along with that, I found a pinkish-red candle holder I already had, so put that on the coffee table.  It looks good with the plum cushions (but it didn't make the photo).  Seconds after I took the photo below, Jessica-cat popped up between the two sofas.  Cat photo-bombing!

This is our living area from the opposite angle.

  

And here is our guest room, if anyone needs to stay for the night whilst transitting through Auckland (be quick though, we will be gone as soon as our house sells).  Our photographer brought the aqua accents in with her which made a big difference to tying the room together colour-wise. For our open homes I placed a taupe mohair throw at the end of the bed (which Nina-cat LOVES) and leaned a rectangle patchwork cushion in front of the white Euro pillows.

 My office!

Now, the photo below isn't on the real estate agent's listing, of course, but I wanted to show you my linen cupboard because I am really proud of it.  You know that people will be opening your cupboards when they are looking to buy your home, because they want to see how much storage there is.  My linen cupboard had gotten a bit messy (understatement) because I hadn't organized it in a while and ended up stuffing things in anywhere there was a space.  I even had a duvet inner jammed in (which is now in the blanket box with the other blankets and duvet inners).

I took EVERYTHING out and then started folding Martha-Stewart-neat and making it look nice.   I thought I would have to do some major decluttering, but because I had decluttered a few times before; everything in there I loved and was in good order, and once it was folded neatly with like items together; everything fitted with plenty of room to spare.  I was so happy!  I imagine people opening up our linen cupboard and thinking to themselves 'Oh, there's plenty of room here'.

This is our bedroom, and how lovely does the orange throw and cushions look?  These are our photographer's and I love the way they bring more warmth into the room.

And below is the other angle towards our ensuite bathroom.  I will be sad to leave this house because it truly is such a cozy and homely place to live, and really sunny and warm too.  In fact if we weren't wanting to leave the big city and become country mice, we'd happily still be living here.

Call me shallow, but what I will miss most of all is the quadruple wardrobe.  Yes, it has three full-size wardrobe doors and then an extra bit again extending beyond that to behind the ensuite wall.  It truly is a tardis and I remember  being very excited seeing it when we viewed the house to buy.

The lights in our bedroom we had put up.  They are black 'wrought iron' and the look I was going for was French mountain chalet or French barn, something like that.  Something French anyway!

This is our ensuite which I adore.  We put a heated towel rail in and a fan heater on the wall.  I like to be cosseted, and it makes a lovely little spa area when I have my boudoir time at night, pottering around putting on a face mask and reading something soothing on our bed while the mask works its magic, flutey spa music playing softly.

 

And here we are on our deck, which opens off the living room.  Won't you join us for a glass of bubbles (sparkling wine or Perrier, take your pick) to celebrate selling our house soon?

I hope you enjoyed my home tour, it was lovely to have you around!

Fiona

PS.  If you are new to my blog, you may not have heard my interview with the gorgeous Shannon Ables from The Simply Luxurious Life.  I had such a great time talking with her; she is a fantastic interviewer.  Shannon is in Bend, Oregon, and I am in Auckland, New Zealand.  How cool is that?  We had such fun - Shannon is the nicest person ever.

We talked a little bit about my book Thirty Chic Days and all sorts of things related to living a simple and beautiful life.   You'll probably already be familiar with Shannon's inspiring blog, and podcast The Simple Sophisticate, but if you're not, you are in for a treat.

You can listen to (or download) the interview here, and it's also available on iTunes and Stitcher.  I'm sure you will enjoy, as I did, Shannon's generosity of spirit and genuine friendliness (I was a little bit nervous before the interview!)

I hope you enjoy listening to Shannon and I chat - I so wish we could have met in person!