Getaway from it all: A Light and Airy Airbnb Garden Hideway

 It's one of those days where I've got a big photoshoot, the house is a mess, one of my girls has forgotten her cross country trainers.... and I've got a zoom call in half an hour. What I really feel like doing is emigrating to Australia. In fact, this studio will do!

You might recall the a very beautiful workspace belonging to Kawa Heart Studio. Dee also runs a light and airy Airbnb - accessed by a secret path. 'A space less ordinary', the studio is located in a former glass studio in their lush garden on the fringes of old Fremantle town, Western Australia. 

Built from recycled materials and powered by solar energy, Dee Kawai Tang has worked her magic with the interior, kitting it out with classic mid-century and vintage pieces which are bathed in sunlight from the Cathedral-style windows. All in all, a perfect garden hideaway in which to retreat, create and simply relax. 

I'd fly over right away if I could!

Could you imagine staying here too? 

There's a lot more colour entering the interior world right now, but I think this studio is a perfect example of how white is always right (see what I did there?). It looks so fresh, light and airy in this studio and everything within it really pops as a result. 

More info and pics of this lovely studio on airbnb.

Check out all my other favourite homes in Australia right here. 

Right folks, dreaming over for the day... I need to hurry across town with these trainers! 

Happy Wednesday friends! 

Niki

Photography courtesy of Airbnb, with thanks. 

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Workspace inspiration: the Everlane studio

Good morning Monday! If like me you're back at your desk today you might be looking around and thinking - not this place again?! In which case I've just the inspiration for you. This is the Everlane studio in San Francisco. For those of you not familiar with Everlane - they sell absolutely fab basics and sell them without middlemen and stores - with the philosophy 'Know your factories. Know your costs. Always ask why' (love that). Needless to say, there studio is equally great - set in an industrial warehouse building with polished floors, shades of grey and warm wood, the look is simple, clean and fresh. Perfect inspiration for the start of the working week?!

Photography: Luke Beard (shared with kind permission). Found via The Style Files with thanks.

Oh to work in a studio like this!

A tip on large plants for your space passed onto me by an interior designer recently....check out your local online secondhand stores to source large indoor plants. 

If you'd like to see a little more work space inspiration it's well worth checking out my 'studio' archive (don't miss the Danish carpenter's workshop and the creative studio of Katrin Bååth - firm favourites of mine!).....and loads more work space (including fab home offices, collectives and ateliers) here. You don't even have to feel bad spending time over it as it's all in the name of work, right?!

Even if there is nothing that can be changed about your workspace - I see from the Everlane website they're shipping international until 22nd November (usually they only ship to the US and Canada) - so there's a way to cheer ourselves up anyway!

By the way - this isn't a sponsored post - I just found their studio and shop so inspiring and had to share it! 

Have a wonderful start to the working week! 

PS Don't miss the free printable 2016 wall calendar.

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Giving My Sister's Guest Room the Scandi Treatment

Paid partnership with Decology (all words are my own):
 

Do you find some rooms just seem to fall into place and you can puzzle over others for years and no matter what you do, it just doesn't feel right? I can be so indecisive that in the same time I've been obsessing over small details of my hallway, my sister Cas has managed to dig out an entire basement (obviously not with her own bare hands!) beneath her South West London townhouse and kit it out down to the door knobs. I'm in awe! But she has come unstuck with one space: the guest room. Admittedly, it's a tricky one. It's situated at the back of the basement and only gets a very small amount of natural light (down a light shaft). I promised to help create a warm and inviting room (considering I'm often the guest in question it was in my best interest!). Plus I'd been waiting for an opportunity to test out Decology - a new online interior design service.



Decology offers two different online interior design services. 'Studio light' is free and provides you with 100+ designer creations organised by style or room. You can visualise them by adding them to a standard 3D model of your space, edit away and chat with a Decology designer if required - and then shop the look!

'Studio Plus' is the whole shebang and comes at a fee. It allows you to upload info about your room  along with pictures showing the look you love and a floor plan (it doesn't matter how rough - it can even be sketched on the back of a napkin) - as  long as there's no ketchup in the way, the professional interior designers can use it to create an actual 3D version of your room as well as a room scheme for you to play around with to your heart's content.  Once you're happy with the space, you'll receive a rendering of the design and get access to the personal shopping concierge.

I decided to give Studio Plus a whirl:

The brief
 
Cas was looking for a Scandi style (can you tell we're sisters?!), light, de-cluttered room with a couple of style statement pieces thrown in (and knowing her husband, the space should be highly practical too!) - I kept this in mind during the Studio Plus survey.




I also uploaded a few pictures which Cas snapped with her iPhone. As you can see, the room is a blank canvas, begging for a little TLC!

 

2. Room Schemes
Once the designers had read through my brief, they put together two room schemes for us to choose from.

A Scandinavian style guest room with a chest-of-drawers found on Decology here.


A Scandinavian style guest room with a wardrobe found on Decology here
 

I was super happy with both (and so was Cas!) - they're pretty nice aren't they?

3. Playing around in the 3D studio
The good news is both schemes were placed in the 3D studio (an exact replica of the guest room) so I could play around with everything and see what looked best. Funnily enough I preferred scheme number one on paper but when I started to play around in the 3D tool I preferred the second scheme - it felt cleaner and more practical (Cassie's man would be pleased - perfect!).



The tool allowed me to rotate the room, zoom in and out and move items around as well as swap them in and out.
 

I could also play around with the colours - going from a lighter look to darker tones.

In the end I opted for one dark grey accent wall behind the bed since I like the contrast, but am aware of the lack of natural light in the room. 

Final Room Design

What do you think? Do you like it?

I showed them to my sister earlier today and she's super happy - yay!

All that's left to do is shop the final design directly through the Decology studio* (so handy!).
 

I've got a feeling I'm going to be a pretty happy guest the next time I visit Cas!

If you're also stuck on a room, I can definitely recommend seeking a little help from Decology! If you'd like to use my schemes as a starting point you can find them here and here. Your space will be ready in no time! 

Niki

Note: I found the Decology site worked best using Google Chrome or the latest Firefox browsers. 

*Shopping service available to UK residents only. 

This post is brought to you in collaboration with Decology, however all words are my own and I only ever work with brands I love and think you will too. Thank you for supporting the businesses that make My Scandinavian Home possible.

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The fab light-filled studio of Camille Styles

Happy Monday! Is there such a thing?! Well yes, if you work in a space like this. Designed by Claire Zinnecker  for Camille Styles, the studio is filled with natural light, pops of bright colours and lush greenery. There's also plenty of meeting / social spaces where I could see myself drinking tea and chatting - I mean, brainstorming- which include a fab sofa, round Tulip table and grey marble kitchen.  I'm sure I'd look forward to my Monday mornings would be if I worked in this studio, how about you?

 

Owner: Camille Styles. Designer: Claire Zinnecker. Shared with kind permission from the photographer: Jessica Pages

Is this your kind of work space?

Items I know and love: Eames DSR side chairs, kilim cushions/pillows, rustic wooden stool, Tulip dining table.

A lot of thought has gone into this space. Not only does it look great but everything is designed to stimulate productivity. Take the table -research suggests having items which are curved rather than straight create positive emotions which in turn stimulates creativity. Round tables also encourage people to work together (if ever there was an excuse to invest in a Tulip table).

In turn, research has shown that the presence of greenery can help employees recover from demanding activities, lower stress levels and reduce office pollution levels. Time for a little indoor gardening?!

See more pictures of this fab studio here. I also love this, this and this studio and all of these images for office/atelier/studio inspiration.

I also found this piece interesting about why large open-plan offices are so not cool.

Have a great start to the working week! 

PS Thank you so much to everyone who entered the weekend give-away - the winner will be announced here later today! 

PPS I am in the process of making a few improvements to my blog design, please bear with me! if you see anything strange it would be great to hear about it in the comment section. Thank you! 

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Dream Life On A Budget: A Tiny Cabin And Pottery Studio In The Woods

Ever thought about packing up your belongings and jumping in the car to pursue your dreams? If so, you'll feel truly inspired by Natasha Lawyer and Brett Bashaw! The pair met in a cafe in Seattle in 2013 and married six months later. Having lived in a Volkswagen van, an apartment with a pink carpet and a vintage airstream they decided to pursue their shared passion for pottery and dream of living in a small house in the woods. In 2014 Natasha and Brett packed up their belongings and moved to Vermont, USA where they bought eleven acres of land. They spent their first winter transforming a tiny home (measuring 166 sq. ft / 15.4 sq. m) and building a potting shed, bath house (112 sq. ft / 10.4 sq. m), pottery studio (392 sq. ft /36 sq. m) and chicken coup and christened their new home the 'Sugarhouse Homestead'.  Today you can find the couple drinking lattes, making and selling awesome pottery through Sugarhouse ceramic Co., tending to their two little dogs and flock of chickens and planning their next big trip. I caught up with the couple to find out more about life in Vermont, and what it means to live in a tiny home.

Why Vermont?
We'd always imagined living in a little cabin in the woods and doing that in Seattle was impossible. Seattle is such a boomtown with all the tech companies moving in and it just got too expensive and overwhelming and full of people (and the traffic and transit system are both terrible). We'd travelled through Vermont when we took a six-month trip across North America and it felt so woodsy and open and reminded me a lot of where I grew up in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. So, we made a plan and started to figure out logistics.

Did you buy the property before you moved?
When we sold the airstream and packed up everything we owned into our pickup truck to move to Vermont, we had no idea where we would end up. We'd booked an Airbnb for a few weeks but we had no plans after that.

That is so brave! How did you find the property?
The property we ended up buying was among the first we saw. Eleven acres with a big meadow and acres and acres of maple trees. It just felt so green and open and woodsy and gorgeous. It's such an amazing place to be.

It looks beautiful from the pictures! Were there any buildings there when you bought the land? 

When we purchased the property it was just a land sale. We negotiated for the sale to include a shed which the former owners had been using as a makeshift office and we converted it into a cabin so we could live on the property right away. 

What other work have you carried out on the property?  

As soon as we closed on the property, we immediately purchased a pre-fab building to be converted into our pottery studio. We spent the winter building walls, wiring, insulating, flooring and finishing the interior. We also added a little potting shed for storage and garden supplies. We moved into our property in December and it was too late in the year to do any excavation work for water. So, we spent our winter without plumbing, using a portable-potty and showering at the gym. We set up an off-grid water system in our little cabin kitchen and carried water in from our well all winter. Then when spring finally came, we were able to do some excavation work and add plumbing and build ourselves a little bathhouse, which we've spent the last few months working on. 

Wow, what an achievement! You've certainly worked hard to create your beautiful homestead. Your living quarters measure a mere 166 sq. ft / 15.4 sq. m. Have you always lived in such a small space?

We've lived in a Volkswagen car together that we travelled around North America in. Then we bought a vintage airstream and renovated that and lived in it for a year and a half. 

The washroom

"We planted ourselves a little garden and a fruit orchard as well as got ourselves a little chick coup and some chickens too. This is the first time either of us have ever owned a property so it's been a really special thing for us." 

The Potting shed

What are the benefits of living in a small space?

I've always been drawn to interior design, so I like getting to decorate a bunch of different spaces and living small, spread across three different buildings allows us to do that. Designing means that you're a lot more intentional about what you put in a space. Quality wins out over quantity. For us it's about choosing a way of life that allows us to live freely. We didn't have 300,000 USD to build a huge house, so we had to improvise. If your not rich you have to be creative about the way you get what you want and adapt to a lifestyle that is within your means. For us, that has meant living small. 

The Pottery Studio

And the pitfalls?

Brett and I got used to living in a small space together when we lived in our Volkswagen van for six months and then our airstream for a year and a half. The pottery studio adds a lot to our living space so for us, there really aren't any huge pitfalls. Less storage, but really, it's almost better that way because it makes us conscious about our belongings. 

How would you describe your interior style?

I like to think of it as Scandinavian meets Anthropologie with a touch of greenhouse mixed in. 

What are your 5 best tips for decorating a small space? 

1. Items should be functional and beautiful. One doesn't have to win over the other. 

2. Seek out beautiful everyday items and curate your space so that every item feels special to you. 

3. I tend to lean toward a neutral Scandinavian look for the backdrop of a space. A lot of white and layered wood tones, simple furniture and as many plants as possible.

4. I've been adding a few pops of colour into some of our spaces lately, using bedding and pillows, but the bones of the space remain very neutral.

5. I tend to layer a lot of one of a kind pieces into the space from our travels, thrifted from the Salvation Army and Antique shops for a cosy feel. 

I love the look of your pottery, can you tell me more about your business?

My husband and I run a little pottery business out of our studio. Sugarhouse Ceramic Co was born from a love of illustration and design that I bring from my former life as a designer at Anthropologie and current side-hustle as a studio artist. Brett brought to the table a love of business and well-made goods, as well as a splash of perfectionism and good craftsmanship. It's our first joint venture! 

Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us Natasha - what an incredibly inspiring move! I love your pottery too!

To find out what Natasha and Brett are up to at the homestead on a regular basis, you can find them on Instagram at @sugarhousehomestead and @sugarhouseceramicco and their pottery is available at www.sugarhouseceramicco.com.

Where have you always dreamed of living? Or perhaps you're already in your 'forever home'?

Niki

PS Peek inside the world's smallest luxury home, how to create your very own garden retreat on a shoestring budget and 16 tips on how to turn a tiny room into a dreamy yet practical bedroom.

Photography courtesy if Sugarhouse Homestead

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