I love my house. I think it is beautiful. I love to be at home with my family, to lock ourselves away from the rest of the world. We’ve created our own private sanctuary and surrounded ourselves with the things we love. We think our home is very beautiful but we don’t go in for expensive department store furniture.

My husband, Mark, and I and our two cats, moved into our 110 year old terrace house just over seven years ago. At the time, our two daughters were living in flats close by but have come home to live with us at different times. It’s a big old house with lots of rooms so we’ve all got plenty of space. Like Bryony said about her house, as soon as the estate agent opened the front door, I knew that this would be our home – I fell in love from that first moment.

One of the first things we did was to plant out the tiny front yard with flowers, shrubs and a hedge. Then we created a secret haven in the backyard courtyard. It’s paved and sheltered by a trellis covered in passionfruit and grape vines. This means we have very little outdoor work to do except to trim the vines and the hedge every now and again. It suits our lifestyle even though we’d love to have room for a veggie garden – can’t have everything, I guess.

Our house was built about 1890 and is one of two terraces joined by a common wall. At one time there was a third terrace separated from ours by an archway. Early last century this archway was where horse drawn trams rode through to the terminus out the back. It’s amazing to think what it would have been like all those years ago. I often wonder about the people who have lived here – what they wore, what they looked like, who they loved, what furniture did they have? I know a lot of people don’t like really old houses and I know some people even think they’re haunted. But I love old houses. To me they’ve got a soul that you can never get even if you try to build a house to look the same – maybe they are haunted after all – but with friendly ghosts, I think.

As you can see from the photos, I love clutter. I love having the things I’m passionate about all around me. Just when it seems a room is full to bursting, I find something wonderful in an op shop that I can’t resist and somehow it fits in perfectly amongst all the other bits and pieces. But I like to think that my clutter is organised clutter and not just a mess of junk – or maybe I’m just delusional.

The dining room is clutter heaven. A bookcase is crammed with my Grannie’s

old china and nik naks that I can’t bear to hide away. I hand stitched the curtains from two pashmina shawls we bought in India years ago while Mark hung the marionette we picked up in Burma. The walls are decorated with treasures we’ve bought on our travels – a St Francis cross from Assissi, a silk carpet from Cairo, papyrus from Luxor, a Balinese painting, and a thangka from Nepal. The dining room is also sort of the middle of the house so it’s where we play our music – Indian is our favourite and lots of Café Del Mar.

And I love for us all, family and visitors alike, to be comfortable and with the things to make us comfortable right at hand. So for hanging out on the lounge, for instance – the huge coffee table in front has the remotes, candles, magazines, tissues, books, photo albums and the lounge itself is covered in big cushions and throw-rugs to keep us cosy. A table lamp sits on a side table at one end for reading and knitting while the coffee table doubles as a foot stool – why not?

The kitchen is another lovely place to be – for Mark anyway because I hate cooking. Like the rest of the house, most things are on show on lots of open shelves and all our appliances are out on the bench tops ready to use. The tall stained glass windows were a find from thirty years ago that Mark and my Dad reassembled to open up a once dingy room. It now glows with coloured light and dappled sunlight coming through the trees outside. 

Our terrace has two internal staircases. One leads to two large bedrooms at the front and the second one leads to a smaller room at the back which was originally the maid’s room – now the only maid is me but I get to sleep in one of the big upstairs bedrooms at the front of the house. Our daughter, Lauren, and her two cats have the biggest room off the top verandah while Mark and I chose the quieter bedroom facing the back. Our bedroom is always light and sunny and, because most of the house is often dark, we wanted to keep this room as light as possible. It’s the only room we painted with plain cream walls. After visiting Italy a few years ago I wanted to create that Renaissance, monastic, classical feel and keep the decorating to a minimum. It was hard to keep it simple but I wanted a peaceful room and that’s exactly what it is.

Peeling paint, cobwebs, faded rugs, lounges worn with age and bursting their springs and stuffing, dust, scratched furniture – that’s our house because I don’t care about perfection or the latest fashion. I care about feelings and emotions. I can look at everything we own and know the story behind it – whether it’s a lamp picked up at the local church fete, a Buddha statue bought at a temple market in Bangkok, candle sticks given to us by our daughters, books bought at second hand shops, rugs crocheted by my Mum, embroidery by my Aunty June or a lounge suite handed down from my Grandma.

I love our house. It is who we are. And that’s why it is beautiful.