Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2020 i Your Home and Garden

This Christmas issue all started on a whim: how about a peacock sitting proudly on top of a pink tree, we wondered? The pink tree was relatively easily sourced from Spotlight but the peacock was a different story. We scoured the country for a bird showy enough to take pride of place on the tree. Finally, we tracked down the perfect one from Ballantynes in Christchurch but the courier went MIA and we had to start our cover shoot without it. Necessity is the mother of invention and Kate, our stylist, took deputy editor Bea’s family Christmas dove and secured three ostrich feathers to it as a substitute in case the peacock didn’t arrive in time. Just when we were thinking we’d have to use our ‘dove-cock’, the tardy but…

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DAY 14 Decorate the tree Whether your tree is living or reusable, perfect symmetry is the name of the game and lights should be your first port of call. Conventional wisdom says you’ll need 200 lights, or 10 metres for every 1.2 metres of tree. Start weaving them from the bottom and close to the trunk upwards. At the top work down and onto the outer branches. When it comes to decorations, colour themes are enduringly popular. If you’re building up your bauble collection, don’t buy a single ornament. Instead buy three, six or 12 of a kind. Start with your largest ornaments and use a Z-shape when hanging. You can use the least exciting ones closest to the trunk to bulk out the decorations. Keep the most delicate ones…

Stylist Erena Te Paa is known for her unforced but incredibly elegant modern style. Her home is her calling card – all natural ease and welcoming spaces. Your Home and Garden asked Erena to create four Christmas projects using everyday found things she had lying around her home, the type of things you’re likely to have too. Here’s what she came up with. The grow advent calendar You could be mistaken for thinking this is an artwork over Erena’s fireplace. In fact, it’s an advent calendar that you can plant. For this project, she enlisted some dowel from an old children’s coat rack and painted it white, then hung it over her fireplace with straps from the chairs in her lounge. She filled packets of seeds in little brown envelopes,…

Meet & greet Emma Collie (a nurse before she had Lexie and has been a full-time mother since), partner Ben Ryan, (content director), Lexie, four, and Evie, two. 1 Ready to upscale If there’s one thing about renovating, it’s that – if done right – a little can go a long way to creating a functional home that is pleasing to the eye. When Emma Collie and Ben Ryan gave their 1920s bungalow a makeover, the structural changes were few, but the impact was big. This was all thanks to efficient spatial amendments and the addition of colour. The couple’s house story starts in 2019, when they were renting the upstairs level of a home in Grey Lynn, Auckland. A friendship formed with their neighbour Natalie van Peer, who lived…

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR: • Clever interior colours• Inventive paint projects • Exciting exterior paint HOW TO ENTER Email photos and a 200-word or more description of your space to yhg@aremedia.co.nz with your last name and ‘Resene Colour Home’ in the subject line. Please include your name, home address, email address, daytime phone number, the names of the Resene colours used, and details of when your space was painted. Please credit anyone who assisted you in choosing your colours. The five finalists will each appear in Your Home and Garden, starting from this issue. Every finalist will receive a $250 Resene voucher and a feature in the magazine, with the winner taking out the Resene Colour Home Awards and $5000 cash. An extended story on the winning home will…

A white Christmas Although our hot Kiwi Christmases are devoid of snow flurries, ice-skating rinks and steaming mugs of hot cocoa, a table twinkling in white and gold will transport you to a northern hemisphere Christmas, but without the chill factor. Start the look with a soft white linen tablecloth, then layer crisp white and gold plates on top. Down the centre of the table arrange ‘snow dusted’ dried flowers and pine cones with candles and seed lights. Add more gold accents to the setup with gold cutlery, serving tongs and trays for the food. And, if your table can fit one more flourish, gold and white Christmas crackers wouldn’t go amiss either. Now all you need to do is play Michael Bublé’s rendition of White Christmas over the speakers,…

How to prune fruit trees in summer French orchardists often keep their trees small as it makes them easier to harvest, spray and cover with bird-proof netting, if need be. In the home orchard it also means more varieties can be fitted in, which in turn means fruit production can be extended over a longer season. The best way to keep these trees at a manageable size is by pruning in summer because removing leafy branches means fewer leaves to photosynthesise, hampering the tree’s energy production and thus size and vigour. For new trees, growth should be cut back by half in early summer and the same with any subsequent growth in late summer in their first two years. After that, it’s pretty much a matter of keeping them to…

Family is everything for Antonia Prebble but where presents are concerned, she’s hoping for some linen and new togs. “I haven’t thought too much about presents for other people yet, to be honest, but there has been a request for a UE Boom so I know that will be under the tree” she says. 01 The Twelve Days of Christmas song. We sing this carol every year after dinner and it’s my favourite Christmas tradition. We divide up the parts, and despite the fact we have been singing it for more than 20 years, every year people get the words wrong and it descends into hilarious chaos. 02 Christmas pudding. Growing up, Mum and Dad would put coins in the Christmas pudding for us to find, which was always so…

Hanging the baguette ornament I got from Amazon, even though my kids are trying to ban it. Good luck. Giving Fiasconaro x Dolce & Gabbana panettones from Smith & Caughey’s – the best sort of collab going. Wrapping those panettones in this paper. I ordered 50 metres from Ribbon & Blues, so that ought to last a few Christmases and birthdays. Burning this woody DS & Durga Portable Fireplace candle from Mecca. It’s the smell of a northern hemisphere Christmas.…

BRING ON 2021 If, like most of us, you’re looking forward to leaving 2020 behind, Made of Tomorrow has got just the thing to get you excited for the new year. Their new Twenty Twenty One diaries are made from recycled coffee cups. One diary saves around five recyclable coffee cups from the landfill. From $59 at madeoftomorrow.com SPARKLE SEASON Christmas is a time for twinkling lights and these Champagne cone tree lights do exactly that. Woven together with glitter and sequins, they will sparkle day and night. Small, $27.99, medium, $39.99, and large, $49.99, from adairs.co.nz MAKING SHAPES Add some interest to your space with Freedom’s new decor offerings (from left) Putney table lamp, $179, Pudil bookend, $44.95 (large), Pudil bookend, $32.95 (small), and grey Titus vessel, $54.95, from…

Some people might baulk at the thought of a three-day Christmas celebration. Not this Brisbane clan, who gather together every year for a mega family event. It involves the five members who live at Jilaine – Angus Craig and Kirsti Simpson and her three daughters – hosting Kirsti’s three sisters and their families (each with a husband and three children), plus Grandad, in the sprawling four-bedroom Spanish Mission-style home. The cousins commandeer the pool and almost all their activities are water-based. Kirsti bought the house in 2006 after it had been on the market for some time. “It wasn’t lived in and felt really mysterious,” she says. “We lived one block down on the same corner and there was something crazy-beautiful about it that was really appealing.” Despite the ivy…

Honesty box Best lessons learned? A house built in the 1920s moves a lot over time, which means nothing is straight and everything takes longer to do than you think. Any renovation or DIY disasters? Not exactly a disaster, but the bath didn’t fit through the bathroom door. A bit of quick thinking and the door frame was removed. The bath is now sitting happy. What’s the one thing you would change about your home if you could? To put skylights in the living room to let more light in. What’s the most memorable experience you’ve had in your home? As it was our first house, move-in day was pretty memorable. We felt very lucky to call it home. Budget What areas of your renovation did you save on? We…

The mouth-watering scent of sizzling meat floats over the neighbourhood. It’s barbecue season. A big part of our Kiwi culture, barbecues are synonymous with sitting in the sun with friends and family, slowing down and enjoying great food. Due to this year’s pandemic, Tony Deller, category manager outdoor living at Mitre 10 says, there has been a rush on barbecue purchases as Kiwis spend more time at home: “New Zealanders are doing up their beloved outdoors.” If you’re investing in a new barbecue, how do you know which model to choose? The answer, says chef and restaurateur Nic Watt, of wood-fired grill eatery Inca, is to consider how you want your barbecue to match your lifestyle. “Ask yourself, ‘What will I use it for? How will I use it and…

Lemon hasselback potatoes SERVES 10 INGREDIENTS 60g butter 2 Tbsp olive oil 1 tsp finely grated lemon rind 1 Tbsp lemon juice 10 medium Desiree potatoes, peeled 1 Preheat oven to 180°C/160°C fanbake. 2 Heat the butter, oil, lemon rind and juice in a small saucepan over low heat until the butter has melted. Remove from heat. 3 Place the potatoes on a chopping board. Working with one at a time, place a chopstick on the board along each side of the potato. Slice the potato thinly, cutting through to the chopsticks to prevent cutting all the way through (you’ll need to stop higher at the ends to avoid cutting all the way through). Repeat with the remaining potatoes. 4 Place the potatoes, cut-side up, in a large shallow baking…

f you had to describe Felicity Jones I in just one word “versatile” comes to mind – followed closely by “creative”. Not only does she run her own floristry business but she also sings in a choir, teaches music, collaborates with other people in art projects, helps out in her local community garden in Auckland and recently worked as a “botanical specialist” on the set of a BBC adaptation of Eleanor Catton’s Man Booker Prize-winning novel The Luminaries. Did I mention she also grows many of the flowers she sells in her Grey Lynn garden and has two children? A keen gardener all her adult life, she began growing flowers well before she started her floristry career five years ago. “It wasn’t until relatively recently that it became an actual…

WE LOVE The Christmas edition General Collective Lifestyle & Design Market on December 6 is a festive market you won’t want to miss. @generalcollective We were in choux pastry heaven at our cover shoot. You can order your own Christmas profiterole wreath, from $32 at littlefrenchpastry.co.nz ALMOST A COVER STAR When our peacock ornament almost didn’t make it, deputy editor Bea’s family dove was given a new feathery tail to act as a peacock stand-in. CONNECT WITH US We love seeing images from our #yourhomeandgarden community. @yourhomeandgarden TRENDING ONLINE Ten Christmas hacks to get you through the festive season. homestolove.co.nz TOP INSTAGRAM POST The before or the after shot? Turns out you loved both! @yourhomeandgarden Instagram @yourhomeandgarden | Facebook facebook.com/yourhomegarden | Pinterest pinterest.com/yourhomegarden…

Christmas and consumption go hand-in-hand. It’s a time of year where we spend far too much on throwaway decorations and unnecessary gifts, and often end up with rubbish bins overflowing with plastic and food waste. The festive season doesn’t have to be a burden on our planet – with a little thought and creativity we can be a wonderful example to our loved ones of how eco-friendly Christmas can be. Rather than buying into materialism this year, I encourage you to make some small, simple changes that are gentler on the earth, and in many cases, your pocket too. These practical ideas will help you to celebrate the season sustainably, without skimping on all the beautiful festive magic. 1. Change your perception of gift giving I’d much rather receive a…

The traditional green and red or frosted white and gold colours may call forth those Yuletide feelings and prompt the need to break into raucous rounds of carols, yet we can’t help but feel our summery Kiwi Christmas deserves something a little more bright, light and cheerful. This year, the Your Home and Garden team channelled candy-coloured fancies and luscious curves to deck the halls, or should we say arches, of deputy editor Bea Taylor’s home. Armed with pastel pink, blue, and yellow, plus some popping shades of purple and green for contrast, boxes of honeycomb balls and a soft pink tree, a sweet Christmas ensued. All the trimmings Gift-giving aside, the best part of Christmas is gathering the family around the table and celebrating the holiday with a delicious…

The approach to David Beattie and Cindy Bradley’s bach is unassuming. Passing a mix of modest baches and the more grandiose plaster holiday homes of Bowentown, south of Waihi Beach, and the dramatic proportions of their home suddenly stands out from its seaside neighbours. “We wanted a dramatic, striking, earthy house that was simple but bold. We didn’t want it to ooze money,” says David. The street-facing, oiled cedar exterior’s stark geometry, seeming absence of windows and fortress-like appearance belies what is to come inside the house – and from the sea-facing side of the home. David likes the starkness of the house from the street. And the absence of windows along the right side of the home means their privacy won’t be sacrificed should they choose to subdivide. Through…

After trying – and failing – to find a wallpaper that suited both her daughters’ tastes, Kirsty Young took it upon herself to create something unique for their chill-out room in Khandallah, Wellington. “We draw all the time at home and flowers are a predominant theme, so it was the perfect inspiration.” Kirsty started transforming the family’s storage room during the first Covid-19 lockdown. Resene Quarter Rice Cake was used on the walls and floor to bring welcome lightness to the room. Katherine wanted a pink wall, so Resene Pink Lace was chosen as the feature wall hue with blues and golds, and Emily’s favourite shades feature as the flower stems in Resene Wild Thing, Resene Tacao and Resene French Pass. Meet & greet Kirsty Young (insurance broker) and daughters…