Exploring Design, Home, Art and Gardening since 2008. By Julia Atkinson-Dunn
Your interpretation of ‘home’ is your personal creative right.
For all those that quake in their boots at choosing the “right” paint colour, dining room chairs or even bed linen with the ache of wondering if it is “cool” and “now” – it’s time to REALLY let all that go.
Despite the fact you bury yourself in tidal waves of inspiration each night via your phone and magazine pile, it’s YOUR cool and YOUR now that matters.
As an 8-year-old being bribed to do my mother’s weeding, my lack of interest in gardening far outweighed my thirst for pocket money. Not much changed into adulthood and while I definitely appreciated gardens at surface level, I was mostly focused on pillaging neighbourhood blooms that hung over fences.
Read MoreLet what’s going on outside, influence what’s going on inside….
Read MoreI can safely say, that the most enduring home decorating feature in my life to date is the humble, paper globe light shade.
Read MoreJust when you thought brick was fuddy duddy and out... Australian architects have it re-imagined!
Read MoreArt is food for the soul and a visual treasure that becomes part of your “home”, wherever that might be.
A piece of art to me, is something with a story. Either attached to its subject matter or the person who created it.
Read MoreThe term ‘Mid Century Modern’ is readily flung around by furniture stores, magazines and bloggers like a little hook to lure you in. Hey, its not the only catchy catch phrase out there that glows with trendy interior promises – but if you, like me, have grown a little confused about “what” sort of style it relates too, then let me help clarify.
Read MoreFast forward 4 months (from Vol. 1 of this story) and here we are, with interior finishing touches all done and a big beautiful baby Ada (who arrived 9 weeks early amid their mad painting effort!)
Their home, while compact, is open and extremely user friendly. High ceilings and decent sized rooms have allowed them to claim back some square footage for inbuilt cabinetry and their palette of soft but full colours is the perfect backdrop to their collected treasures.
Plants will improve any space. Fact.
They add texture, they add oxygen (See! Even health benefits!) they are affordable, always changing and inject substance to any room. When cared for they can outlive pets and fill you with satisfaction with every successful flowering or new shoot.
Modern homes are filled with manmade, flat surfaces, sharp corners and so so so often; a monochromatic colour palette. Consider plants to be a living artwork that can subtly break this up and even compliment it, offering you shape and form plus a soft hit of colour (yes, it will likely be green.)
My “stuff” offers me both a three dimensional photo album AND a way for me to evoke the comforting, textural, eclectic vibe I like to live in.
And this has nothing to do with who owns the roof over my head….
Read More
I’m Julia Atkinson-Dunn
THANK YOU FOR JOINING ME!
Here, you’ll find my ongoing adventures of creating art - oil pastel and painted landscapes, mixed media botanicals, plus some writing and information about me!
Studio Home began as NZ’s first design blog, launching in 2018 as a champion of NZ/AUS creative talent.
Since then I have used this space to continue exploring design and art as well as deeply investigating gardening through the publishing of three books and the launch of Unearthed in 2023.
Julia xo
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