In my twenty years of life, I have lived in three states, I have attended four schools, I have called seventeen houses home and one caravan.
When I say the numbers out loud they seem absurd but to me it’s just life, it feels normal. My childhood friends have lived in one house for their entire lives. I think I would get itchy feet after a few years, staying in one place makes me feel like a caged animal. I am a seasoned traveller, I can pack up a house with ease. Sometimes I even find myself purposely storing my belongings in boxes so as to be ready for the next move.
The longest I have lived in one house would be the first six years of my life, before my parents separation. After then my mother and I were on the move, we jumped from one place to another, we met my step father and we became the travelling family. My father on the other hand turned his home into one that could travel, a caravan. He’s never much liked conventional living, he prefers to not have a garden to groom and a house to maintain.
Since leaving home at eighteen, I have lived in three different places. Two units and now a cottage house. The first unit was tiny, just two rooms. The second unit was much nicer and bigger and martin moved in to live with me. We had a tiny little garden and I grew herbs. Next we moved to Melbourne and after living with my mother to find our feet, we found our current house, our ramshackle cottage.
When we first moved into our cottage, it had been sitting dormant, unloved and damaged. Handprints and dirt all over the walls, stickers on every door, the carpet with stains and the oven looked as though it had never been cleaned. There were holes and tears, paint spattered tiles. The garden was full of dead leaves and prickly weeds. We had been trying to secure a home for months, no landlord wanted to approve our application. A young couple aged 19 & 21 with very little rental history, a university student and an apprentice chef. We were being turned down for little apartments that we could easily afford. It was fate that this run down cottage needed someone who could put in a little love. I scrubbed walls, and floors, I scrubbed the bath, shower, sinks, cupboards, carpets. I raked and weeded and vacuumed and moped and dusted.
We furnished our home with second hand, salvaged and gifted items. Our dinning table a gift from my father, our couch we bought second hand from a lovely young couple, our fridge a gift from my mother and step father, our television was given to us by martin’s brother and our washing machine by his parents. My father even made our television cabinet with his hands from recycled wood.
A home is not determined by the objects you have acquired, but by the love and care that you put into it’s walls. Ours is filled with love by the kindness of others, I could never express just how grateful I am.
I wanted to start this little project to document the homes that we live and breathe life into. Memories can only last so long, but pictures last a lifetime.
the view when first entering the cottage
to the left is the entrance hall, which has been renamed as the games room after i bought martin the foosball table for his birthday.
to the right is our guest bedroom.
upon leaving the entrance hall, you enter the lounge/kitchen. with its slanted, pressed metal roof and port-hole windows.
the other side of the lounge room. i edit and blog my pictures from the iMac in the back corner. i love being by the window, watching the birds playing in our garden.
a staircase leading to our loft bedroom separates the kitchen and lounge.
our little kitchen tucked away under the stairs. i love being able to hang our pots and utensils on the hooks.
my favourite room is our loft bedroom. the peaked roof and little window, the peach coloured walls. when we first moved in the air conditioner was hanging off the wall, but with a good clean and a little tape to hold it in place, miraculously it still works.
we don’t have a wardrobe so I invested in some clothes racks and martin keeps his clothes in the spare room closet.
back down the stairs and through to the back half of the house. this is the laundry walkway, there is a backdoor to our courtyard to the left.
hiding in the back corner of the house is my creative cubby house. the entrance is hidden by cupboards, you have to squeeze through half a meter gap just to get in, it’s really tiny in there, with barely a square meter of floor space.
this is where i keep all the clothes that i am sewing for my shoots, props, jewellery, old cameras and other bits and bobs.
tucked under the built in shelves is my sewing machine
a built in pinup board and plenty of room for my film cameras.
the other side of this little room is book shelves that i fill with things for my pictures and books.
our home is filled with love and light.
out of all the places i’ve lived i think this one is my favourite. maybe it’s because i put so much work into making it a home, or maybe because it’s old and filled with history, or maybe it’s just because it’s mine.
