Innholdsfortegnelse for August Issue#4 2018 i Australian Country Homes

Welcome to another issue of Australian Country Homes. I don’t know about you but here at AC HQ, we’ve had enough of the cold weather. So this issue, we’re looking forward to the arrival of spring and the stories we’ve selected from our parent title, Australian Country, all have a focus on one of the great delights of the season, the rebirth of the garden To quote the great British garden designer Gertrude Jekyll: “A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and carefulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust.” The people featured in these pages have learnt all these lessons and have generously agreed to share their stories. They have also discovered that gardening is good for not just physical wellbeing, but also…

Tucked away in Pete and Robyn Law’s master bedroom at their rural home, Willabah, is an extraordinary book. Big, covered in leather, it looks like the kind of book you’d find in a European monastery library. The pages are full of skilful drawings, handwritten texts and riddles. Bird feathers are glued in, candle wax dropped onto the pages. The attention to detail is extraordinary. “We wrote the book and made it look like it was a very old book, covered in leather,” Pete explains. “We poured tea on it and soaked the pages.” In the absence of a TV in the house, the Laws came up with the idea for the book that contains more than a hint of the fantasy world of J.K. Rowling or perhaps John Flanagan. Their…

At first glance, Al Phemister’s dandelions are works of such incredible lightness that you feel a puff of breath would blow them away. On closer inspection, it turns out the sculptor’s delicate disintegrating flower heads are in absolutely no danger of falling apart. They’re made from concrete reinforcements — plastic-tipped bar chairs — sturdily welded together and firmly planted in the ground. Al can see potential where others see mundanity. From his studio in the NSW southern tablelands town of Yass, he takes sprockets, washers, horseshoes, chicken wire and other scrap metals and discarded industrial building materials and turns them into objects of gentility, fluidity and soft beauty. Al’s studio is in the grounds of a rambling hub of creativity surrounding the 1853 extended cottage he shares with his artist…

There’s a black and white photograph in a grouping above the bed in Jen Ballard’s cottage that goes some way towards explaining her remarkably diverse portfolio of passions. The picture shows Jen’s mother, Joan Louitt, a World War II nurse with the RAAF’s Medical Air Evacuation Transport Unit, based on the island Morotai in Indonesia. With her oxygen bottle and mask at the ready, the plucky nurse was responsible for the evacuation to New Guinea of “her boys”, sick and wounded soldiers returning on litters strapped into the bellies of the Douglas C-47s that were the front line transport of the time. “Mum went on to become one of the first batch of flight attendants with TAA,” Jen explains. “Actually I come from good adventurous stock. My grandmother, Mabel Davis,…

They say a change is as good as a holiday and, in Jillian Langford’s case, a move to Yankalilla was a lot like a holiday, one that never ended. As soon as she arrived in the charming seaside town on South Australia’s Fleurieu Peninsula, Jillian knew it was there that she would find the lifestyle she was after. A huge gamble that paid off, her decision to move was made in spite of a long daily commute to work in Adelaide. She doesn't regret it in the slightest. “I just love it here,” Jillian says. “The commute doesn’t matter so much when I get to come home to such a wonderful place.” A magnificent cottage in the country sounds clichéd, but the reality for Jillian is a beautiful mix of…

The sign on the cellar door says it all: “Please leave the winery lights off and the music on.” Peter Windrim, winemaker and son of Rod and Suzanne Windrim, founders and owners of Krinklewood vineyard and winery in the Broke Fordwich region of the Hunter, nods his assent. “Biodynamics is all about good intentions and vibrations,” he says. “So we always play music while the wine is fermenting.” Biodynamics is also all about the cycle of life, and visitors to Krinklewood get to experience that first-hand. From treating the farm as a living, breathing organism and getting the soil just right with the administration of preparations synced to the phases of the moon and the planets, to acknowledging that every animal on the farm has a role to play, Krinklewood…

The Wedding Nest is a boutique wedding gift registry specialising in unique gifts that are design- and style-focused, not available on other registries. This is the registry for people who don't want vanilla. The owners work hard (and love it) to source global pieces that are leading the way in design and showcase brands that do the same. Register online to view an extensive, yet well-edited, collection of beautiful homewares, statement furniture pieces and unique artworks as well as all the registry basics. theweddingnest.com.au For gifts, homewares and quilters’ materials, look no further than Somethings Country. Janelle Frohloff has personally curated an amazing array of accessories for the home. From bedding, quilts, timber bins and laundry hampers to spice racks, braided floor rugs, curtains, tin signs and enamelware, there is…

Debra Kinsella admits she is a hopeless case when it comes to antiques. She was born into a family of style-conscious decorators, has been rearranging her bedroom since the age of five and has decades of experience as an antiques dealer. With that pedigree, it’s hardly surprising that she knows a good buy when she sees one and has great difficulty passing up a bargain or a rare treasure. Debra had stints as a nurse, interior decorator, restaurateur and sales manager on her CV when she met her husband, Paul, an Irish-born pilot turned air traffic controller and data systems manager in Cairns. They started doing up houses as stress relief from their high-pressure jobs and now have completed 11 renovations together. At the same time, they ran an antiques…

By Ebony Trueman’s reckoning, it helps that she comes from a long line of hoarders. Growing up on a farm at the back of Rye on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, Ebony says her parents’ idea of a great weekend would be to pack the whole family in the car and head to Ballarat or Bendigo for a swap meet or car boot sale. Not just any old car, mind you. Ebony’s father has a penchant for retro cars, so they would head out in style in his Pontiac or Ford Thunderbird or whatever latest acquisition he had salvaged from someone’s paddock and lovingly restored. “At the time, I found it embarrassing,” she recalls. “But now of course I realise that it was pretty cool. My grandmother was a dressmaker and beader…

Affectionately known as the Green Cauldron, the northeastern corner of NSW rests within an expansive ancient volcanic crater. Winding the narrow roads toward The Channon, green it certainly is and in every possible shade. World Heritage-listed rainforests and national parks are patchworked with rolling hills of macadamia and coffee plantations, lush pastures and strolling cows. Home to an eclectic mix of alternative lifestylers, farmers and tree changers, this area is dotted with little villages connected by a labyrinth of dreamy country roads. “You’ll feel like you’re a million miles from anywhere,” Niccy Mockridge, who purchased property here with husband Andrew Shepherd, says. The Gold Coast couple bought their 1950s farmhouse set on slightly more than 100 acres (40 hectares) as a weekender seven years ago. Their renovation of the property…