Good morning from the Coast of Australia.
I'm sitting under a blue autumn sky at my desk, cup of tea in hand, wondering just *how much* location and lifestyledictate our home styling.
It's lovely to be back here with all the inspiring ladies Maureen has brought on board *The Moksi Home* blog...I have loved reading each and every story- nodding away in agreement with the thoughts and lives these women lead.
SO...just how much does location, and lifestyle, influence our styling and comfort decisions in our homes?
Having lived, with our family of five, in both hemispheres of the world- I have had to embrace location living and home styling on every level...it's a learnt skill in many ways. I truly believe that our house is a wonderful balance of both our family life in the countryside, as we lived in England, and our family life here as we live it by the sea.
The true gift of living abroad, is the influence the experience has upon your self on so many, many levels. It demands and embraces change and growth and grace.
A home grows with experiences, just as a person does...and the journey of growing in a personal way, from beliefs to decorating styles is a natural bi-product of the experience of living abroad. Gathering pieces for a new home when living abroad, in an unfamiliar environment- works in an interesting way. Much of what we surround ourselves with is still based on aesthetics and what we love in the world of home fashion...but there is another level at play- that of essential decorating!
For our family- moving from a coastal life spent on the beach, in the ocean and by the harbour, to a classic country life, by another coastline on the other side of the world- meant a change in our decorating big time! We had suddenly moved from an outdoors life...to a much more indoors dominated lifestyle. This was very new-to-us, and offered some decorating/style dilemmas to me in those first few months of country living!
For example....
In Australia, the weather and lifestyle allow you to walk almost bare foot most of the year. This keeps our beach house front door uncluttered and empty- with the door almost always open, it's a simple, clean welcoming room to our little house.
(on that note- I can promise the rest of our house is never this organised!)
In England, Wellies (gum boots/rain boots) proved to be an essential part of our attire, and therefore an essential element in our hall way, and therefore a challenge to my simple decorating ethos! Simple as this crisis was, it still demanded a new way of looking at how a house works, for a big family of five, in a different climate and country...with me, a mother whose life is totally about her family and hugely influenced by the visuals of life.
Being one who unpacks for a weekend away, when we moved across the globe, unpacking and making our house a home was of top priority to me for our family.
The small changes in lifestyle-
wellies and coats, in the hallway always at the ready for the demands of the weather....
a mud room for wet walking gear and muddy school/sports shoes...
a fire to be lit in winter...
early 4pm afternoons of darkness in winter with three active Aussie kids...
dark winter mornings on the walk up to school...
these changes posed very new, very real decorating challenges for me - challenges I loved and have now grown from in my decorating style!
Where in our beach house I try to find a place for everything-everything away and clean simple spaces to contend with the open plan living and open front door, in England I embraced the inside, the busy indoors...the evolving rooms...I fell in love with vintage baskets for knitted hats and scarves at the front door...beautiful old hooks and ways to hang lovely coats in the hall...and big old pre-loved crates for all the essentials needed to light a roaring winter fire.
Just because these things were essential, it didn't mean they couldn't also become a design element of our home.
Back to sitting here, under a big blue Australian sky...as I look around this room that I love in our beach house- the elements of our country life are very much evident and will always remain a wonderful presence in our decorating no matter where we live. I still have vintage baskets near our front door- only they no longer hold knitted essentials or winter boots. They hold Turkish towels and sunscreen!
I feel blessed to have had my eyes opened to other ways of living, and loving, on your family through the spaces you create in your home...we like to think we live in a Coastal Farming {see here} way, which is truly a melting pot of the parts of the world we have lived in and loved.
Home is always where the heart is...with a good bit of practical decorating for the climate!
Hope you live in a melting pot of decorating inspiration, wherever you are.
Melissa xx
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* visit Melissa at her blog Miss Sew and So
* photo's by: Melissa