Queenslander Style

I’ve been wanting to put up a post about how I’ve decorated our house for a while now, but instead I’ve only got around to posting snippets here and there on instagram and my instastories. So I’m sure that most of you by now have a good idea of how I’ve decorated our home. One of the reasons that kept me from posting is that I kept getting cold feet. I follow a lot of amazing bloggers who live in magazine style abodes and I would be lying if I didn’t say it didn’t make me feel intimidated that none of this lives up to the expectation of what a bloggers house is meant to look like…But then I reminded myself, I’m not really an interior design blogger, rather, just a blogger who enjoys aspects of interior design. The next obstacle that came up was figuring out how to take photos of an entire room that fit all of the furniture in one shot. Well, that didn’t actually work out when it came to taking photos of the bedroom which is actually quite small. Just big enough for our fourposter bed, a chest of draws and some plants. That’s just how tiny it is, so instead I’ve focused on the details that I love about the room.

Our house is a Queenslander built the early 1900s and I wanted to decorate in a way that bares resemblance to the era the house was built, and our location. While still keeping things fairly modern and comfortable. I also wanted to see how much stuff I could source second hand, because I love a good bargain…and any excuse to spend hours in thrift stores and antique shops. Which is why I’m pleased to share that the only things in these photos that were brand new are the chair, the lamp and the cane plant stand. Everything else was either free or second hand. Including the grumpy dog. I became obsessed with the tropical look late last year and a good friend pointed me in the direction of India Hicks: Island Style. This was exactly the look I wanted to create in our home, only I didn’t have the budget that those who have connections with the royal family normally have access to. So I set about trawling Gumtree, Facebook Market Place, and stopping in by every garage sale and thrift store we passed. And I wasn’t above asking family members if I could help myself to bits and pieces that they had in storage and weren’t using, nor had plans to use anytime soon.

Plants are a big part of the tropical aesthetic, and much as I love heading to the garden center, I also knew that I could get exactly the sort of the plants I wanted for free. Most of our family members have large gardens and living in a tropical part of the world means ferns grow wild and are actually somewhat unwanted. Instead of letting the ferns get culled during a garden clean up, I asked to have them sent my way instead. Which is how I ended up with a good number of stems for propagating and several pots of lush green leafy plants and ferns. The orchid which is my latest acquisition was actually a forgotten/unwanted gift to a family member that got passed on to me. I’m still very pleased about that! I know that having lots of plants indoors isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I really like having the outdoors, indoors. Someone told me that apparently having lots of plants in the bedroom will make those that have a tendency to snore not snore as much…but so far I still get woken up every night by my husband and the dog snoring in unison. So that’s that myth debunked.