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I am constantly asked “so what bedhead do you have?” 

Working with such beautiful fabrics can become a little overwhelming even for an interior decorator.  I am a blue girl,  if you had not already noticed with the colours I have chosen for photoshoots and branding!!  So with a lick of Porters Periwinkle paint on an old wicker table and a great find of the same blue for linen, I opted for my all time favourite the Chelsea bedhead in vintage blanc Belgian linen with a co-ordinating valance.  Finished with a Bianca Lorenne quilt, I was a little tickled pink if I don’t mind saying so myself when it finally all came together.   

 I know I know I am married to a farmer so how do you keep it clean??  Suffice to say Will is very well trained these days!! Although he still struggles with how many pillows need to be removed each night to get into bed.  I keep telling him it’s a girl thing!

Looking forward to long leisurely days of summer holidays and our girls seem to sense they’re nearly here. After a hectic day’s riding at our local gymkhana, we wondered why everyone was so quiet and this is what we found.

Here they were practising their plaiting skills with balls of wool in the garden.  Reminiscent of Jane Austen oh just a little!!  What a perfect way to finish the day!

Fireplaces are often dark and of no interest other than when they are roaring on a winter’s evening.

I always knew our in house decorating consultant Michelle Pennington was full of bright ideas.

With not knowing how to add light and interest to this south walled fireplace that we never use, her quick thinking of cutting up a fallen limb from a silver poplar tree and filling it high with beautiful pieces of timber resonated the soul!  Your eye is instantly taken to the textures of the timber.  The children loved stacking the different pieces (bit like a leggo tower really!) and my husband loved the fact that this decorating trick was free!  So for all those disused fireplaces, be creative and think outside the square with how you too can create interest with a touch a something so simple as a branch from a tree!

We look after many clients who are wanting to soften the look of their bedroom from a timber bed with an upholstered one.  I personally am struck by the number of “hard finished” beds available when really the majority of us want a bed to be our nest, something soft and inviting to retreat to.  I subscribe to velvet & linen a gorgeous blog out of the States whose latest posting really brought home the difference an upholstered bedhead can make to a room.  Here she shows what she started with and finished with.     The fabric is very similar to our vintage flax, loving the shape of the bedhead too, ever so subtle and tasteful.

Trust it inspires you too to consider the possibilities!  For more fantastic design ideas visit: Velvet and Linen

As some of you might know, the Heatherly Design office is located on our family’s farming property 90 minutes north east of Melbourne.  One of my other passions is gardening and through the Australian Open Garden Scheme we are opening our garden the weekend of November 12^th and 13th.   A perfect excuse to come and say hello, wander our 3 acres of perennial and rose borders, see my husband’s fountain he personally designed and built in our forecourt and admire the vistas in our beautiful valley through to the Cathedral Ranges.   Our local school is “going all out” with a local produce stall and devonshire teas will be served on the verandah.  Another beautiful Paul Bangay garden is open down the road so lots to admire including the opportunity to visit our Heatherly Green Tea Plantation.

My gorgeous husband has agreed to extend our open garden offering to include his 30 acres of green tea which is actually a camelia plant (all 170,000 of them!).  We will be in the midst of harvesting so it will be a stunning sight.  So for all those green tea drinkers, here is your chance to see how it is grown and harvested so close to Melbourne.  Go to www.tworiversgreentea.com.au for further details.  For garden lovers and those that just want to have a sticky on where Heatherly Design Bedheads began all those years ago in our woolshed, this is your chance.  We look forward to seeing you here at Heatherly and sharing a cup of green tea on the verandah with you.

It’s that time of year again and we’ve been designing new pieces for our collection.  This is the fun bit!   Fabulous having gorgeous Michelle on our team who is even more passionate about fabrics than me and that is saying something!!  We feel so flattered that our competitors are taking our lead so we won’t give too much away at this stage but very excited about the new prototypes we are signing off on.

Here we are with 15 designs and still creating more special pieces…….

My loyal Heidi is pregnant and needing those extra pillows to help her sleep better in these last few days.  The whelping box has been built, the children even have toys ready for the puppies to play with!! We are all wondering just how many are in that large tummy of hers and what colour as her handsome friend (!!) was chocolate so there could be a few surprises in there!!  As  I sit here typing she is snoring heavily with her head resting on a luxurious piece of Ella peacock velvet!!  Often we deliver our designs in time for baby arrivals.  We all nest during pregnancy and need those extra pillows and bedheads for support …… I have concluded labradors’ requirements are not disimilar to ours really!!

Will let you know the colours, sex and how many in the next week…. stay tuned x

Recently, I met Lisa in Albury in transit on our way to QLD for our family holiday in July.  Lisa had been inspired after reading Elk Accessories’ website where director Marnie Goding had blogged about her special Heatherly bedhead.   I so enjoyed helping Lisa come up with her design, we just needed to deliver her order within a tight timeframe which I promised we’d meet.  Everything was ready to leave our warehouse on the set date to meet this deadline but our courier did not arrive, so David, our super upholsterer, made a late (after 6.00 p.m.) dash across the city to the depot to ensure Lisa’s bedhead was on the truck for delivery as promised for the following day.  I have always wanted every client to believe they are the only client that matters and David certainly demonstrated his committment to that philosophy with this result.  I am very proud of my team and the committment we have to meeting our clients’  expectations.

Richard Waller of Inside Out says about design ‘if you’re too busy trying to please all the people all of the time, you end up pleasing no one (least of all yourself).’  

Have you ever taken a fabulous decorating piece home and discovered it won’t fit where you planned to put it?  Maybe you created a whole new room around it, changing layout, colours and textures as you went.  The ultimate creative spirit is shown by those who can use what they have and make it look amazing.  

Some decorators can plan to the nth degree, but where’s the fun in that?  If you’re given a wonderful antique which has been in your family for ages and means a lot to you do you throw it out or give it away just because it won’t fit with your decor?  More likely you’ll take the initiative to make it work.  

Our lovely clients sent us lots of photos in a recent competition and there were some bedrooms that made us go “wow”.   A few of them had created their room around the feature wallpaper, then used other pieces to show it off.  Then there were the bedrooms that showed the individual creativity of their owners who used colour, texture and bedhead design to personalise their bedroom.  This image with a Catherine Martin wallpaper from Porter’s Paints and our Soho design in Ella stone is all about creativity, having faith in following your creative instinct – what a result! 

Creative instincts at work

You just never know where inspiration for your perfect bedroom make over may come from.  For some of our clients, it’s  whilst enjoying a movie where gorgeous interiors are featured that the seed is planted.

Rebecca fell in love with the bedhead in the movie “Somethings Gotta Give” and so did we. So much so it inspired our Fulham design.  We love the understated clean lines of this design and teamed with a textured linen, the finished result is always elegant and refined.

The stunning wingbacked bed from “The Proposal” movie inspired Julie for her daughter’s bedroom.  Finished in Dolce velvet, her daughter is one special little girl to have her very own custom made bedhead to rest up against each night whilst reading.

Of course, the bedhead that is currently the talk of the town is Carrie’s gorgeous wingbacked design from Sex and the City 2.  Following countless enquiries for wingbacked designs, what better way to launch this design than with Carrie’s  rendition.  The piping and studs on the profile define the clean lines and complement the stunning black and white fabric featured.

So next time you find yourself at the movies admiring the interior features of a room and not following the story line, you can rest assured you are not the only one who focuses on the finishing touches that make a house a  home.