Live Breathe Decor

On the weekend my parents-in-law and I went to take a look at a beautiful old house that has come up for sale in the area outside Melbourne that we are hoping to buy in. When I’d seen it on the internet it seemed to tick all the boxes; a reasonably large block of land (4000 sq metres) for a residential area, loads of character, and beautiful established trees.

On arrival it has these beautiful iron gates and an impressive view through them up to the house. Doesn’t it look beautiful? Even the weather suited the house - all dark and rainy and gloomy - my absolute favourite kind of day.

The garden was full of mature English trees, with lots of gorgeous autumnal colour - reds, oranges and yellows. Can you see the twisted brick chimneys on the house?

And lovely views of the garden through all of the windows. I didn’t take any interiors photos simply because of the number of people at the inspection. The property must be some sort of local landmark because it seemed half of country Victoria was there taking a look!

Unfortunately this house didn’t tick the boxes for me. Though beautiful, the property is surrounded by modern new-builds, and I dream of not having any close neighbours. It also needed more work than we would realistically be prepared to take on, including lots of rising damp. But the main problem for me was it just didn’t give me ‘that feeling’; I felt no connection with the spaces and couldn’t really imagine spending time there.

My dream country house would have one large communal living space (this house didn’t have that):

via velvet and linen

I particularly love this double-height barn-like living space filled with comfy sofas, books, paintings and antiques.

Room for lots of books:

via cote de texas

Lots of relaxed, cosy corners:

And scope to use some dark greys and blues, maybe even black for walls:

And you know I’m a sucker for that traditional, masculine, ultra-warm and cosy den-like look (here it’s Ralph Lauren’s country library):

So, my happy search continues.

Have a great day,

Naomi x