My Tom Boy

This little one is such a sweet, special child.  Holding him is like having a calming palm laid against my heart.  In these crazy days of manic work schedules and chaotic family life, I have had almost no time to meditate.  Yet, when Tom and I sit alone in the dark, welcoming the first streaks of dawn on the early morning sky, I feel happier and more at peace than at any other time in my life.  He is a gentle, gentle, tranquil soul x

Animal Hides & Mid Century Modern Furniture

Like many designers, I love adding an authentic Eames, Bertoia or Thonet chair into my interior schemes for punch, but have you noticed that a lot of Mid Century Modern Classics are very hard (and cold) on the derriere?  I specified eight Tolix chairs for a studio space once only to discover that my clients spent the entire winter sitting on folded blankets!  So what to do about an uncomfy, chilly butt?  Take a leaf out of the northern European rule book of design and drape the chair in an animal hide of course!  I love the juxtaposition of the hard, man made edges of the furniture with the organic, textural feel of the hides.  It immediately turns the chairs into an inviting place to snuggle up and get toasty.

Artwork Love

I love finding boutique suppliers of quirky artwork.  White Horse Home have some sweet little pieces to pine for.  My favourite: Cross Wall Hanging - $89.95 online.

Kids Rugs

Finding rugs for children's rooms can be a real challenge, particularly when you want something that is going to add a real punch of colour and fun.  The new Junior Collection from Armadillo & Co is the answer to my prayers!  Bright band stripes and solid circles are mixed with natural tones to create a really stunning, vibrant range of rugs for kids spaces handmade from soft hemp and pure wool.  Sensational stuff!  

All rugs available through Angela Steyn Interiors.

How To Decorate With Neon

Neon shoelaces on a ten year old is one thing, but how exactly do you pull off electric hues in the home without getting it really, really, really wrong? The 80's child within me loves a dash of highlighter pink more than I care to admit but I have shied away from neon brights fearing they will be too loud and boisterous and overwhelming.  So my challenge was to find a way to introduce them so they worked with my typically white, classic and calm interiors.

The answer: restraint and lots and lots of white paint! By pairing just a pop of bright with neutral, natural tones it suddenly takes on a whole new personality.  By reducing the glare factor and turning the colours into neon pastels, the schemes become ridiculously pretty.  Mix in a few organic textures and I'm swooning. Candy coloured heaven!

Last Days...

By next weekend our family will be four.  

A brand new baby will be passed between our arms, held and cherished and butterfly kissed by the gentle light of the autumn sun.  

A little person full of promise and wonder - an old soul to teach us - a sibling to play with - a child to adore.  

Hurry up my angel baby, we are eager to stare in rapture at your sublime, perfect features and feel your tiny beating heart against our own.  

We love you already x

Photography: Angela Steyn

An Elf in Our Garden

Quick, someone call Santa... one of his elves has escaped!

Photography: Angela Steyn

The Countdown

In amongst the complete chaos of my world (think mountains of paperwork and fabric samples piled up beneath a graveyard of broken toys and stale biscuits) it has suddenly dawned on me that I have just two weeks until we welcome our no. 2 bambino into the world - if indeed our no. 2 is as punctual as our no. 1 who arrived right on schedule (he is a Virgo after all!).

I have just taken on a stack of new clients in the past week - how I imagine juggling them all along with a newborn and a boisterous toddler is totally beyond me but I suspect it has something to do with being in complete denial about just how much our lives are going to be altered by the joy, wonder and ear-splitting cries of a teeny weeny baby.  

The first time around I wasn't self-employed.  I finished work 7 weeks before the baby came... 7 WEEKS!!!  My God, how insanely decadent.  I pottered around making pretty little things to go in the baby's room.  I took yoga classes 3 times a week.  I cleaned our apartment from top to bottom with a toothbrush.  I had massages and went for long, ambling walks in the sunshine.

This time, the baby has to stick a foot into the side of my tummy with as much force as possible for me to even stop for two seconds to remember that I'm pregnant.  There have been no massages, no yoga classes and certainly no afternoons lying on the sofa reading magazines.  I have managed to wash the baby clothes but they sit in the laundry basket where they will no doubt remain until we bring our little bundle home from the hospital.  Life could not be more different.

But here is the question... would I change anything?  Not a chance.  I love the life that Andre and I have fought so hard to build.  I love the fact that we live immersed in creativity (which just so happens to also be our work).  Yes, I could use a few more hours sleep a night.  Yes, I wish I could slow down the clocks.  Yes, I wish I could carve out a few more peaceful moments to sit in quiet meditation with my baby.  But our world is such a beautiful blend of happiness that I feel my soul renewed daily by the craziness.

So watch this space folks.  Tick, tick, tick... the scenic route of life is about to get a bit rough under foot for a while!

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Sensory Play for Toddlers - Coloured Rice & Beans

Sensory play for toddlers - coloured rice & beans

I have a beautiful German friend called Sarah who leads the kind of life I can only imagine.  Her world is full of scandi-inspired wooden toys, organic food and lots of handmade pretty "stuff".  Her life is the life I would lead if only I could be bothered to locate and dust off the sewing machine which has inched its way further and further into the depths of our roof storage. Yesterday Leo and I popped over for a play and were met with more fabulous homemade creativity - this time in the form of sensory play tubs filled with coloured rice and beans.  Hours of entertainment right there!  Chubby little hands sifting through the grain, pouring, scooping, mixing and inevitably spilling... magic to watch.  Follow the instructions below to make your own coloured rice.

How to Make Coloured Rice

You will need:

• Large quantity of white rice
• White vinegar
• Liquid food colouring (in a variety of colours)
• Large glass jar

Method:

• Mix 2 tablespoons vinegar with a few drops of food colouring in the jar
• Add 2 cups of rice
• Shake like crazy
• When colour is completely absorbed, tip rice out onto a baking tray and pop in a low oven to dry out
• Repeat for different colours

Photography: Angela Steyn

The Long, Fleeting Days

With the passing days of being a Mama I wonder if I will remember all the things about my child that delight my soul and fill my heart to bursting.  The early morning sleepy smiles, the chubby hand absent-mindedly stroking my cheek, the shrieks of joy as he gallops past on the back of my husband, blonde curls bouncing, head bobbing.  The way he struggles valiantly to string words together correctly to form a sentence, his face earnest and furrowed in concentration.  His untainted perception of the world. His love of apple chippies, marshmallows and "teeny" bits of chocolate that he insists on sharing with his Dada.  The make-believe bath time chatter, his love of odd bod toys and bits of scrap paper.  His pride in doing his daily chores like feeding the cat and passing me the bed pillows. Most of all, I wonder if I will recall the exact sound of his laughter that fills our home with the kind of joy that can sustain a soul for eternity.

I am determined to document as much as possible as the years speed by, determined not to let the accumulation of long days bleach my memories of their beauty so they lie like a pile of faded photographs on my psyche.  These precious days are fleeting - one day, too soon from now, he will no longer want to crawl on my lap and press his sticky face against mine for comfort.  Too soon he will have grown up.  Too soon I will have grown old.

Photography: Angela Steyn

Window Seats

Rustic Window Seat

One of the loveliest additions to any home is a window seat.  There is something so romantic about the idea of curling up with a rug and contemplating the passing world outside.  Window seats are full of the promise of quiet, solitary contemplation, a little nook to escape to when life becomes too hectic.

Window seats can also provide a great opportunity to incorporate some built-in storage or even an extra bed.  Add a thick, comfortable seat cushion on top in a beautiful fabric, combine it with some feature cushions and hey presto, you have yourself an enchanting, whimsical space.

The above image uses the Hemnes Daybed from Ikea - a brilliant and affordable solution!

If you have a space crying out for a window seat, why don't you send me a photo and I can advise you on how best to achieve the look you want.

Bay Window Seat

Traditional Window Seat

Contemporary Window Seat

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Nature's Child

Leo and I like to wander up and down the streets around our house collecting things to photograph.  Mostly we pick up interesting leaves, funny looking sticks, pretty flowers and clusters of berries, all of which get piled into the tray of his trike with stern-faced, serious care.  I love that he is learning to open his eyes to the natural world around him, that he is learning to see beauty in the most seemingly insignificant details of life.  My greatest hope is that it will lead to an ability to be completely present in the moment - a moment filled with wonder and glory.

Photography: Angela Steyn

White Painted Floorboards - A Veteran's Story

I have spent a vast proportion of my adult life hankering after white painted floorboards.  Looking back, my infatuation probably began the very same day that I discovered the simple, fresh, austere beauty of Scandinavian interiors.  One look at all that blinding whiteness and I was completely brainwashed.  

So finally, one day, after endless discussions with my husband, we made the trip to our hardware store and purchased a very large tin of white paving paint. Having researched it to death, we concluded that regular paint wouldn't be tough enough to withstand the beating it would take in our home studio.  The first strike of the paint roller was nerve wracking to say the least, but not quite as heart-stopping perhaps as the point where half-way through the first coat we looked at each other and silently screamed "Mary Mother of God, what the hell have we done"!

Two coats later and our floor looked so sparkling and spectacular you needed sunglasses just to be in the vague vicinity of it.  It was breathtakingly gorgeous and serene.  We leapt and hugged and patted each other on the back, congratulating ourselves on our "fearless" and "brave" decorating choice.  "Ha!" I shouted, "We are designers God damn it and we shall have white floorboards no matter how fool hardy my mother thinks we are"!

I did love our white floor (we have since moved to a different home) but by crikey let me tell you it was not the easiest of loves to live with.  Everything, and I mean everything showed up on it like it was being examined in a science lab.  God forbid you should attempt to eat a biscuit at your desk or cut fabric.  Let alone the endless shedding of hair (me, Andre, Daphne Cat).  To clean it - which we did every other day, first with the vacuum, then the mop - I would get down on my hands and knees and scrape icky goo off with a kitchen knife.  Be warned, it is a particularly exhausting floor colour choice for anyone suffering even mildly from OCD.

So while I still love to look at beautiful homes sporting stunning white floorboards, I'm not sure my sanity (or my marriage) could withstand living with them again... unless we got a cleaner... who came every single day.  

For our floor, we used White Knight paving paint in White and applied it using a roller.

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Feather For my Soul

"Hope is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I've heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

Emily Dickinson

Photography: Angela Steyn

Soulful Gift Wrapping

Little Brown Packages Tied Up With String

I have always believed that gifts wrapped with love inspire the soul and make us remember that the joy of giving and receiving is often found in the anticipation of the unwrapping.  The contents of the package can be simple, but if it comes wrapped with care and imagination, the feeling it evokes will be treasured all the more.  AND the best bit is that it doesn't need to cost the earth... here I used cheap brown paper, cooking twine, leaves, sticks and shells to create an autumn theme present.  Total cost = $1.

Photography: Angela Steyn

Mood Board: Rustic Country Kitchen

Through all my recent meanderings along the beach with Leo, I have been totally inspired by the coastal colour palette and the rough, natural texture of the shells and driftwood that we collect.  It makes a perfect reference point for the home, bringing the inherently soothing qualities of the cool tones and organic materials into everyday living spaces.  This rustic kitchen is a stunning example - it combines the authenticity of bleached timber and Calcutta marble with lots of fresh white paint and subway tiles.  The result is absolutely breathtaking.

Details that I love:

• The rough hewn shelving
• The choice of pendant lighting
• The timber cladding that carries the theme through from the kitchen cabinetry

Interior Mood Board

Cabinetry: Custom fabricated drawers and doors in Bleached Oak
Benchtop: Aquagold marble from Sareen Stone 
Splashback Tiles: White Subway Tiles from Tiles By Kate
Butlers Sink: Belfast Sinks
Pendant Lighting: Magins Lighting

Bleached Oak 

Aquagold Marble

Butler Sink

White Subway Tiles

Boston Pendant Light

The Magic Power of The Blue Bean

What is the number one treatment for all ailments in our house?  The humble blue jellybean.  The miraculous healing properties of this colour-coated bullet of glucose goodness completely astound me.  From bumped heads to bruised toes, this little gem can take away pain faster than you can say "pass the Detol".  Leo has ingeniously discovered that in order to activate its magic powers, you must first rub it on the injury - vigorously, preferably leaving a bright blue mark - before popping it in your mouth and requesting another one.  Tears are stemmed, laughter returns and equilibrium is restored, all in the blink of an eye.  

If you are planning on using the magic bean treatment remember that only blue jellybeans will work - other colours are for other things.  To save confusion, here is a list as dictated by my son:

Red: when you want to transform into a superhero  

Yellow: feeling sad (1 bean = 1 happy sunbeam)

White: exceptionally good behaviour 

Pink: for girls

Purple: for mamas

Green: for papas

Orange: for colds
Black: for the cat

It has been proven that a little shot of glucose does wonders for shock, so while the placebo effect of the blue bean cannot be denied, the sugar hit will also help calm a distraught child.  So I would highly recommend that you keep a jar of these babies right next to the First Aid kit for fuss-free toddler trauma.

Photography: Angela Steyn

Sunshine of my Life

My child.  You are the embodiment of sunshine.  You are love personified.  You are a mirror for my soul.  

May the Gods always be present in your heart and lay petals on your path.

x

Photo Play: Vintage Books

Littering our bookshelves with their faded spines and musty smell, our vintage book collection speaks of times long gone but treasured still.  There is something undeniably romantic about the battered covers, the thick starchy pages, the weight of words.

Photography: Angela Steyn