Thanks for all the awesome comments about my new home, I feel like I’ve had you all over for a big housewarming party!

Here are the rest of the photos that I took for Design*Sponge along with captions. And now that I have let you in on my secret, I will be posting more photos of the boat from now on - as you can imagine, the stylist in me can’t help but change, rearrange and add things. And since I only moved in a few months ago, this is really just the bare basics of the space. I will be experimenting with new style ideas and I have a few great things to share with you in the months to come. The (blog)house and the houseboat have now fused.

Enjoy the rest of your visit my dear friends - I have the kettle on for you, and my choc & cranberry cookies are baking in the oven right now, awaiting your arrival…mind your step on the bridge…

Kitchen:

The kitchen is my favourite space in the boat - it has a great oven and stove top (hard to find in apartments here in Amsterdam), and the water reflections dance on the ceiling all day. It is very inspiring for when I am recipe testing and food styling. There are 7 windows in the kitchen and it is on a little mezzanine level as you enter the front door, then you step down into the main living space…

Can you see that it is all the same furniture that I had in the Paris apartment? See the wallpaper in the kitchen is the same, and you see the pallet bed?

My addiction is books. Mostly old books. and mostly about interiors, photographers, children’s books, and French literature. and French Boy is a comic fan - I also read his French comics as it is a really good way to learn and practice French I have discovered! You will notice some of my favourite books are listed in the library.

The bedroom is behind the screen that you can see in the loungeroom. It has a large storage space that is in the very front of the boat for clothes, and there are also lots of shelves. i will show you more of this space soon, it is quite interesting. It is very quiet, in the mornings we wake up to singing birds and ducks playing. This is me making the bed so that you see I do ocassionally make it. But that is the thing about being a stylist, you do get a bit lazy when it comes to doing your own ironing and tidying…

And the grand finale, the teeny weeny bathroom:

Yep, that’s the bathroom! Very tiny, possibly the smallest bathroom I have ever had, and I thought the Paris apartment bathroom was small! It was the only concern I had about living on the boat. But I have since fallen in love with it as the most beautiful light comes through the pothole and streams across the shower.

Here is the garden, and one of our neighbours below seeing “dag!” (”bye” in Dutch)…

PS did any of my regular readers guess already that I lived on a houseboat?

PPS the My Heart Wanders countdown will begin in the next post! So this is it, no more procrastinating, get your submissions in!!

It’s been killing me, but I was waiting for the tulips to bloom and the sun to shine before I showed you my home, and finally that moment has arrived.

I will post heaps more photos in the next post but for now, this is the little sneak peek on Grace’s site, and this is what I get up to , all exposed in Erin’s Dailies. …hmm, I am feeling rather naked at this moment.

(PS are you wondering why I didn’t make the bed for Design*Sponge? I’m wondering that too, what was I thinking?!)

it’s a little late, but it’s for all the mothers out there.
This photograph is from a series I took a few years ago, with my trusty Canon AE-1. And looking at this image I realise, I am missing film, just a little bit.

3:18pm: It’s afternoon tea time for me. And I’ve decided, while sipping my tea, that this image goes with this song. They both make me feel happy.

3:19pm: Tea time’s over

wow, i’m wrapped with the response from the before and after, thanks guys! And a BIG thank you to Grace for posting it. I love how the story looks on her blog (well, I love everything on her blog!), it really shines - but poor French Boy, he is a little embarrassed… I did warn him to close his eyes!

There were quite a few questions in the comments on design*sponge so I am going to try to answer them all here. I have linked to each commenter so you can easily find the answer to your question within this post. I love questions about my work, so don’t hesitate to ask more in the comments if you have them.

(more…)

…an exclusive eight page story that I produced and photographed here in Paris, full of decorating tips for creating the Paris look we all crave and love, is out now in Australia, in this month’s issue of Home Beautiful. Click here to purchase online.

As you know I am on another project here in Paris and I don’t have much time to post but just wanted to let you know about this now so you can get your copy of the magazine and read it over the weekend. As soon as I get a free moment I will post the whole story for you, complete with extras! x

Next up: we are heading into the kitchen! could you tell from the above photos? you know i like to lead into things (perhaps i’m not such a scatterbrain after all!)

PS oh i just saw the wandering heart in the first image!

I am a scatterbrain. Not all the time. Just most of the time. I shift from one thing to another so quickly I forget to finish what I start, then I remember and come back to it, then move again. Sometimes I glance at the list in my diary for the day. And that scatters my thoughts even further out into the atmosphere as I realise what I still need to do in between what I am actually doing. Somehow at the end of the day I manage to tick things off the list.

Needless to say taking the following photographs were not on my to do list for the day, but I found myself creating them this afternoon, in between returning props, booking a hair appointment, buying gifts, looking for more props, sending images, et cetera et cetera. Shall we call it photo study of a scatterbrain, or as i quite like cold tea collecting thoughts, complete with captions. So here it is, a collection of props and pia paraphernalia…

I used these feathers in a shoot yesterday along with mir handmade, very happy with the results and can’t wait to show you, but for now, just these.

I have a collection of skeleton leaves that I always carry with me for shoots, just in case I can slip one into shot.

Creases. Once were out, now are in. That along with styling the napkin - a stylist’s worst nightmare, but the challenge is so rewarding, especially with linen like this.

This little guy was actually a new spool that I needed to make look old for a shoot a few months back so I stained him and his friends with tea and oil. I do love him so.

A very old and quaint Dutch apron that I bought on the weekend in one of my favourite vintage shops in Amsterdam.

A white orchid by my desk catches the flickering light from the window and makes me daydream, my thoughts scattering like butterflies.

I’m not sure what the cure is for being a scatterbrain. Do I want to be cured? that remains the question…