hello…

We are not interior designers. This website is not about us predicting trends or telling you how to design your home or which accessories are this season’s “must-haves”. It is about us sharing a very personal journey – one which has made us really think more about design and how it affects the way we now live our lives.

Our current journey started in 2017, when we sold our home in West Didsbury, Manchester. We’d lived in the mid-terraced, three bedroomed house since 2000, but had recently renovated it, creating a very unusual, completely open plan space. This gave us a craving for more space. To be somewhere which didn’t have houses to each side of us and to the back and to the front. To be able to see the sunset, not other roof tops. We took a complete leap of faith and sold the Manchester house, buying a stone house, high up in the hills in northern Istria, Croatia and set off on a very new journey.

We really hit the ground running and from day one, had to get our heads around not only sourcing tradespeople and materials but also considering what we wanted our new home to be like. Underpinning our thought processes, was the constant idea that we wanted to create something which was unique and bespoke – and as far from the traditional interior of an Istrian house as possible. We wanted to get to know our new environment and feel the house and understand the space. We wanted space, light and clean lines. We wanted our style, but we knew it would evolve. It would take time. It would become Slow Design…

And now, some seven years later, it’s all happening again. We’ve sold our home in Istria and have brought our Slow Design philosophy to southern Andalucia, where we have bought a traditional Spanish townhouse. The slow renovation begins again.

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Renovation

Interiors

Lifestyle

Travel

Latest Blogs…

Renovation

a whole new renovation

a whole new renovation

When we decided to sell our house in Istria and move to Spain, we initially didn't look at future renovation projects. We thought that we wanted somewhere we would move in, and tinker around the edges, putting our stamp on the property. But, the more that we looked...

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honeysuckle success story

honeysuckle success story

Over the past four or five years, we've had mixed success with our three honeysuckle plants. They have been moved around the garden quite a lot, due to some extensive renovation works, and last year, we dug them up out of big wooden planters, where they were supported...

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a little bit of art deco design

a little bit of art deco design

Our Istrian stone house has not an iota of art deco about it. With a very traditional Mediterranean stone house structure, a Scandi inspired interior and a contemporary exterior, there's nothing at all that hints at this popular design style of the 1920s and 1930s....

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repurposing a chimney pot

repurposing a chimney pot

One of the stranger things we packed into the back of the removal lorry when we came out to Istria, was the large clay, chimney pot which had been removed from the roof of our West Didsbury house, when we were renovating it, because it was redundant. I'm not sure why...

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Interiors

hostal aljibe : archidona : andalucia

hostal aljibe : archidona : andalucia

Sometimes, you find somewhere to stay, that is just so exceptionally beautiful, you spend your whole stay, drinking in the interiors, the exterior, the accessories and accessorisation, and just well, the whole thing. On our roadtrip across Spain, we've been so lucky...

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la posada del mar : denia : costa blanca

la posada del mar : denia : costa blanca

Denia holds some lovely memories for us. Over twenty five years ago, we rented a big villa with a pool and holidayed there with friends. None of us had very much money and a two week holiday was a big outlay, but we had such a great time. We have briefly re-visited...

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rattan

rattan

Our thoughts are beginning to really turn to what could be a whole new life for us. Although we are not over the line yet, we are as close as we have been to selling our home in Istria and relocating to Andalucia. It's close, but at the same time, until the ink has...

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minimalist colour palette

minimalist colour palette

We've been working on the process of stripping back the colours in our home, for the last year. Our initial colour choices were quite bold - deep navy, copper, shades of grey. These worked well for us, and created a real warmth in our stone house. However, what you...

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Lifestyle

autumnal food : spinach & sweet potato bake

autumnal food : spinach & sweet potato bake

Now that the clocks have gone back, it's time to break out the autumnal recipes. We've had a wonderful summer of tapas and salads and fresh fish  - light food, which doesn't leave you feeling too full - but now that the candles are out, and throws are appearing on the...

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macana : sanlúcar de barrameda

macana : sanlúcar de barrameda

Eating out in our new temporary home of Sanlucar de Barrameda seems to be very easy. With many options, in what The Guardian called, Spain's new capital of gastronomy, we do seem to be very spoiled for choice. We're still to get stuck into really exploring the food...

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when the airbnb experience goes well…

when the airbnb experience goes well…

We've been on the road now, for over three months, having sold up in Istria and waiting to complete on our dream Andalucian townhouse. We've stayed in a variety of hotels and apartments along the way, and are onto our third Airbnb stay. The first was for the month of...

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splashes of colour…

splashes of colour…

Currently, most of what we own is in a storage unit, back in Istria, and we are travelling light (although the packed car would suggest otherwise), as we move around Andalucia, getting to know the region of our new home. The purchase hasn't completed yet, so we don't...

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Travel

ronda : andalucia : 2024

ronda : andalucia : 2024

It's over ten years since we lasted visited Ronda, and that was a flying visit, as we were en route to Seville for Semana Santa. But it imprinted such a memory that we always said we'd return for a longer visit, and in August we did just that. The summer of 2024 has...

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ático 73, victoria : medina sidonia : andalucia

ático 73, victoria : medina sidonia : andalucia

Situated in the southern Andalucian town of Medina Sidonia, Ático 73, Victoria, is advertised as an adults-only hotel. Although we're not averse to staying in places which are child friendly, it's nice sometimes to know that peace and quiet are probably most...

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la guardia apartments : tarifa : andalucia

la guardia apartments : tarifa : andalucia

When we booked a four night stay recently in Tarifa, La Guardia apartments seemed a pretty perfect choice. Self-catering, right in the centre of the old town, in the middle of all of the action, contemporary and stylish judging by the photographs, and although not the...

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