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…
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Renovation
Interiors
Lifestyle
Travel
Latest Blogs…
Renovation
and another garden wall is built
With a reliable builder finally working with us, we've decided that we can't let him go to waste, and so are adding jobs to his ever-growing list. The weather has been pretty dire the last week or so - rain, thunder and lightning - and so work on the rear garden and...
pea gravel perfection
So, finally, the whole of the front garden area - the piece we don't actually own, but care for and improve - and the concrete patio, are now covered in a thick layer of beautiful white pea gravel. Six cubic metres have been wheel-barrowed and distributed and raked...
demolition…
We've thought long and hard about how much current renovation we want to do in our Istrian stone house, as it is imminently going on the market, as we have plans for a whole new adventure. However, with the demolition and clearance of the small stone cottage behind...
garden makeover : white stones
Way back in 2016, we viewed our house fro the first time, and this was the garden. Although "garden" is a bit of a stretch, looking back. A mucky, concrete patio and a patch of scrubby land, full of rubble and stones - proper ankle-breakers - and vines attached to an...
Interiors
nuvolette : cole & son
In a previous post I wrote about our desire to eradicate the parts of internal walls which have not been plastered and are still the original Istrian stone. Some people would love the walls, but as the years have gone on, I have to say my love of exposed stone -...
best purchase of the summer…
For quite a while now I've been longing for one of these chairs. But, the garden has never been quite finished, so the idea of swinging gently, whilst sipping a cocktail, seemed ridiculous. We had far too much else to do, to get the outside areas ship-shape, before I...
six years on…
Looking back over photos taken when we came out to view the house in Istria, and stay over as guests of the owners, has been a real experience. I can remember, obviously, what condition the house and garden was in - pretty awful, to be fair! - but as we live in the...
les jardins de villa maroc : essaouira : morocco
It’s always great having friends in-the-know when you travel abroad, as they often give you top tips that you don’t find in guide-books or through internet searches. Because usually you don’t know about these places and so don’t search on them. One of these gems...
Lifestyle
winter is coming
Summer this year, seemed to last way into October. We had two lots of friends stay with us over this month, and both times, we were able to sit out in the garden and soak up the sun, as well as eat outdoors. Even into November, it's been mild - and we can evidence...
oaty apple & cinnamon crumble…
I am not a baker. Not by any stretch of the imagination. I can cook. I can follow a recipe, sometimes go a bit off-piste, and I'm definitely OK with one-pot stews and soups and casseroles. But baking. As in cakes that go in the oven - I prefer to leave these to these...
spicy food fixes
We've come a long way since we moved to Istria, in being able to satisfy our spice cravings. There's still nothing - quite - on our doorstep, as we used to have on Burton Road in West Didsbury, but compared to the early days, we're practically living on Spice Island...
bread point bakery : poreĉ
We've missed sourdough bread since we moved to Istria. We did find it once, in a Konzum supermarket in Rovinj, but have never found it again. Italy, so far, hasn't turned it up either for us. We used to buy it from a very cute shop on Burton Rd in West Didsbury called...
Travel
the ancient roman city of acquileia
Aquileia was an ancient city, founded in 180BC, lying at the head of the lagoons, to the east of Venice, on the road to Trieste, as a Roman colony due to its strategic position between the port and the inland area. It is one of the most important archeological sites...
saintes-maries-de-la-mer : camargue : france
As a child I was really mesmerised by the Camargue. It seemed like a magical, fairy tale place, with white horses frollicking freely on the beach and pink flamingoes, standing serenely in calm waters. Even on the map of France, the Camargue looked like it existed in...
b&b maison d’hôte mas d’eymard : arles : france
We'd never been to Arles before, a city on the Rhône River in the Provence region of southern France. It's famed for inspiring the paintings of Van Gogh, and was once a provincial capital of ancient Rome, known for many remains from that era, including Arles...
hilton rijeka costabella
When we book hotel accommodation, top of the list of our priorities is always to find somewhere on the quirky, more unusual and individual side, rather than a chain. Sometimes, circumstances mean the chain option is the most convenient - late night check in, for...
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