Tuesday, April 5, 2011

My 'Coastal Living' Inroduction...

So I am addicted to reading blogs... I read tonnes of them!  And even though a couple of months ago I was very happy with the interiors I'd done in this house so far, I am looking at inspiring interiors all the time, and realising how 'under done' mine are... I'm now feeling like my immediate surrounds are lacking real substance.... and they are!  I see that now...  My tastes are evolving so rapidly it seems I can't keep up, and I'm feeling uninspired by my home (even though we've come so far!) 

I love the colour turquoise as an accent colour (as you've seen in previous posts about my lounge room) but I feel also that I need to inject some other colour into the house - while I've loved neutral in the past, everything suddenly feels a bit safe and blah!  So I went looking for inspiration - and as always, I need look no further than the Blogs I Like folder in my Favourites on my laptop - everything I need is at my fingertips!  What can I say - it's my happy place :)

As always, I started the day with a cup of tea and a dose of Young House Love, and from there decided to move onto House of Turquoise, where the blogger in chief, Erin, always has amazing interiors featured.  While I was looking back through her posts (it had been a little while between visits), I noticed this post that Erin did about designer Meg Braff appearing in Coastal Living magazine, and Erin's declaration that it was her favourite mag...  This image appearing in said post (from Coastal Living of Meg Braff's Palm Beach wardrobe) was all I needed to see...




































It was just the colour injection my day needed!  And given that I'm in Australia, and this is a US magazine, I haven't had the pleasure of reading it before...  so I went right ahead on clicked on the Coastal Living link -and what a feast for the eyes!

I didn't need to delve too far into the site, the home page had more than enough tantalising links to keep me happy!  The first link I clicked was Design an Outdoor Shower which featured the following amazing outdoor showers.

I don't have a deck, but this is so achievable, you could rig it pretty inexpensively anywhere you had existing plumbing and a spare corner (the shell shower head doesn't really do it for me, but to each their own)...























(Photographer Deborah Whitlaw Llewellyn - http://www.coastalliving.com/)

And I'm not sure I'd really like this in my backyard but I'm just feeling drawn to this kind of whimsy lately...























(Photographer Bruce Buck- www.coastalliving.com)

Speaking of outdoor showers, the very first time I saw one in the flesh was at my Aunty's house, on the outskirts of Byron Bay.  She recently shared her 20th wedding anniversary with a supremely talented tiler, Hank of Decorated Earth, who creates unbelievable masterpieces with all sorts of stone and tile... their interior bathroom is like nothing I've ever seen before, but they also have a little outdoor shower off the main bathroom that is like a river bed, so cute.  They built their own house and are not afraid of colour or using different materials, so their whole house is a really wonderful adventure (starting at the front doors!), plus the location is like a rolling green picture.  Maybe one day they'll let me feature it and I can share it with you :)  But I digress.

Having found such yummy images in the first link, I tried my luck with 10 Ways to Create a Backyard Oasis and stumbled across these ones.  This first one is just so appealing, I love tropical gardens (which a lot of the time are very informal) this one is very clever, it still feels relaxed, but is also very classy, sophisticated and structured...























(Photographer Roger Foley - www.coastalliving.com)

I love this one too... its looks like an enchanted garden to me - its very beautiful, but I sort of feel like an over sized red topped mushroom wouldn't be out of place, lol :)























(Photographer Roger Foley - www.coastalliving.com)

I was on a roll by this stage, so I decided to give the 15 Outdoor Rooms link a whirl and just about choked on my own drool, so amazing were these photos...

The ceiling, the crisp white with the wood, the location... everything... there are no words!























(Photographer Claudio Santini  www.coastalliving.com)

And if you thought the last one was to die for, check this out... if I lived here, I would never move from this spot!  How beautiful-yet-comfortable does it look?
























(Photographer Deborah Whitlaw Llewellyn - http://www.coastalliving.com/)

This one below is clearly a very beautiful structure with quality furnishings and fittings, and would cost a small fortune to duplicate... and no disrespect to the magazine, the owners or designers... but I love the idea that you could take any halfway decent backyard structure, paint the whole thing white, add some curtains, some lush tropical planting around it and some salvaged furnishings, fixtures and linens to create something with this type of feel on a budget...



(Photographer Tria Gioran - www.coastalliving.com)

And the sun room below just makes me want to pick up my copy of The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic and kick back for an afternoon of happy reading.... (as an aside - if you haven't read the book but had the misfortune of seeing the movie, don't be put off... the book is frighteningly relateable, to me anyways, but an entertaining, easy read)



(Photographer Jean Allsopp - www.coastalliving.com)

I can tell you I saved Coastal Living into my favourites so fast that my fingers were a blur across the keyboard!  Its nice to know that even though this is a US magazine, I can still get some amazing eye candy from their website.   I did check Borders (I figured that was the most likely place to get it if it was available in hard copy in Australia) but couldn't see a copy there....  If anyone knows somewhere that tends to stock a variety of mags from overseas, please let me know and I'll check it out :)
Anyway there are plenty of Aussie magazines to keep you busy...  my personal faves are The Outdoor Room, Home Beautiful, House & Garden, Real Living, and my secret guilty pleasure, Better Homes and Gardens...  I only have subscriptions to 2 (I'm trying to cut back!) but occasionally the others sneak their way in my trolley :)

And for any Australian residents who, like myself, are suckers for the paper magazine in their hot little hands, follow this link to an amazing discount on several subscriptions (I got a 12 month BHG subscription for $40!!)  I learnt about it over on one of my favourite forums, in Simple Savings, and have had several years of enjoyment from it (as have some of my friends and family... speaking of which - Nadine, if you're reading this - please don't order the BHG subscription for yourself... your birthday is just around the corner after all, and you never know your luck in a big city!  Lol)

Well I hope you've enjoyed this new style of post (a bit removed from my previous ones about our house and family) - I'd greatly appreciate your feedback on whether you have or haven't so I know if I'm heading down the right track, thanks!

Bye for now :)

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