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 castlemaine house

My beautiful friend,

Castlemaine is a rare gem, your Main-Castle!! It has a very special energy about it and although its acquisition collided with such a tough episode in your life, that part of your story too, adds to the depth and heart of the place. It has stood there waiting silently throughout, reassuring, solid, and yours.

Now could be a good time to give back to it and breathe new life and love into its bones and ensure it continues, always, to be your refuge

The following is a scope as I understand it, of what you have identified already as areas for improvement or modification. It’s the starting point to a more comprehensive approach to the reimagining of this beautiful property.

Have a good read through and feel free to add, subtract or modify. Once we get this right, we can start to organise thoughts and ideas into a plan that you can progress at your own speed.

Hx

From the very first glimpse of the house, it has presence. It is beautiful. Garden planning and maintenance issues aside, the house nestles into the landscape with grace and style.

I adore the colour of the old building and its mature trees settling it into the landscape that is so Australian and so evocative. Geoff will send your his notes on the garden, but as we all commented, the structure of the existing is a sound base for adding to - just like the house. Mulching, stopping the use of roundup and replacing some of the strugglers will all go a hugely long way to enhancing and highlighting the beauty of the whole property.

Glorious.

But open the front door, and the glory gives a couple of slow blinks…

Entry hall:

Lightshade blinks.

The entry to any home is a mood setter - it is what gives a very powerful first impression and so it’s worth thinking about how you want to experience this yourself, and how you imagine it will be experienced by family and friends, when they come to visit.

A paint schedule is a critical first step to transforming the look and feel of a house and this long hallway is our first target. We need a colour scheme that is at once gentle and serene, but also has some charisma. We can paint a beautiful colour, then add layers - a gallery of family photographs, art, whatever it is that floats your boat, this is a good space to get the party started.

The light fittings here are gonskis. I believe lighting is the most critical element of any interior - the quality of light is number one, and a close second is the fitting. Contrary to popular belief, residential lighting is not about illuminating the whole district, or being bright enough to perform surgery, it is the fundamental basis for the entire experience of our interior world. It is everything, so new pendant lights are a given!!

A chunky runner adds warmth and noise insulation, as well as adding to the palette and texture that makes for a welcoming introduction to what lies within, If the home tells a story of its inhabitants, the entry is the introduction that can either compel you to read on, or move on!!

The study:

This room was plundered last weekend, we took away lots of treasure, but we left a beautiful big light filled room ripe for a make-over into a study space fit for a queen.

Thinking about how you’d like the room to function is the obvious clue as to how to furnish it.

The room needs to feel warm and intimate in winter, and light and airy in summer. It needs a decent work station, or desk perhaps situated under the window to maximise the daylight, as well as comfortable seating, good lighting, curtains and a library vibe.

Choosing a colour for here will be fun and may or may not take this rug into consideration… up to you! Personally, I’d biff it in favour of something that doesn’t shout at you. We want this room to be a place where you can think, work, read, or just be. A library is the perfect term, way more romantic that ‘office’.

You have a ton of wall area to fill with art, and I so envy you for that. You’ve already got some really interesting pieces and you’ll have fun in the years ahead acquiring more and building your collection. We use what you have for now and add, subtract or shuffle around as more comes to hand.

Master bedroom:

Kate. This is hard, but a bit of tough love is in order. You honour Michael more by reinventing this room you now share with someone else. Your memories of him are deep in your heart, in your children and in the infinite wisdom they have collectively brought you. His clothes in the wardrobe will continue to hang heavy on your heart and by removing them, you elevate that part of you that knows best how to cherish someone no longer with you. Open the doors and let the light back in.

We start with a beautiful serene colour (and I have just the prefect one!) and full height curtains (what about velvet?) to really add softness and intimacy. We then remove those awful sconce lights and really think about lighting in here - soft and moody, romantic, but also good light to read by at night. So a series of lamps is what we need, shortly after we have a new bed and fabulous linen!

We have talked about an occasional chair, and maybe a storage ottoman for the end of the bed that you can sit on to put on your shoes when you’re an old lady.

With the room arranged like this, there isn’t really any room for bedside tables. One way around that is a bedhead that has a ledge so that your book and a glass full of your false teeth can be put there behind the pillows… But I wonder if maybe we could look at rearranging the room? Would the bed fit on the wall facing the fireplace? We could then put your lovely dresser where the bedhead (or lack of!!) currently is and think about two beautiful chairs at the front of the room by the fireplace.

Either way, massive change in energy for this room, arguably the most important room in the house, because it is where YOU rest, where you’re at your most vulnerable, where you find renewal. A beautiful mirror, more art…. more of your lovely treasures including as much fabulous french ceramics as we can fit.

Please trust me - I’m NOT talking about spending a bank of money, I’m talking about investing thought and care into making this bedroom the space you’ll be the most happy with, a room we’ll need a winklepicker to get you out of.

Spare room:

A bit more pilfering is all this room needs after its paint job. There are loads of extra treasures you’ve already shown me and even more yet, I’m sure, but as we want to spend the budget on spaces that effect you the most, the focus with this room will be on what you already have and how to make it feel magic will rely on how we dress it. But as we are painting other spaces, now is the time to paint this room, too.

All the elements are here to make a great start - it just needs a paint and a tweak.

The Living room:

So much of what I do is perspective shift. You have seen how transformative a fresh eye can be and I think what we achieved last weekend was amazing. Curtains and colour, and adding a little more texture with art and a few other moves and this room in already singing.

You might consider a new, bigger, chunky rug, adding some hides, a woodstack, more art… yes to all the above!! The room has a grand scale and you have some quality, lovely furniture as the foundation for this room’s potential. Kate, it’s gorgeous now and it’s going to get even gorgeouser!!!

Curtains will make a huge difference, warming the room in winter and giving a cool calm on the stinking hot summer days when you need more than aircon to feel cool. You need the visual barrier to a scorching sun to feel the essential respite. The proportions of this room are an absolute dream.

We can play more with the layout, but I think a new colour scheme and curtains will really help to embed the style and texture already here. Before it felt empty, but in fact, all this was here ready and waiting! Like I said, you’ve got great taste but you’ve had other stuff on your mind for a few years…

Dining room:

Tick, tick and tick. Again, all the elements are here but we need to address the starkness of the white walls and bring more of the Kate Ratliff warmth and humanity in to make it better reflect who you truly are.

We could think about a feature pendant over the dining table, given the precedent for mind blowing pendant porn has already been set in the living room, and a chunky rug, too, to bring in the style and warmth.

Casual living room:

Ever heard the term blank canvass? Haha, yes you have. It’s right here.

As I’ve said to you previously, this is an important room in the context of your family life - people need space to relax, to get away, to take a breath. Or just to watch telly.

My approach here would be to make it a snug, chilled out area with a tv, bookshelves where games can be kept, interesting art, chunky rugs - a room brimming with character and earthy warmth. A family room. It also has a pretty fabulous outlook, so we need to think about how to maximise its connection to the tennis court and garden. It’s a fabulous room waiting to happen!!!

Guest bedrooms:

All three of the guest bedrooms have good proportions, good light and good outlooks. All they need is tweaking with colour and perhaps in time, when the budget and effort affords, we could look at how to individualise them so that they feel more in keeping with the standard of the rest of the house. We want less the hardly-ever-used extension vibes and more the can-we-come-for-the-weekend-again welcoming, warming embrace.

We’d do this by adding critical elements like colour, curtains, lamps etc. Everything you have is already there, we just add more.

Again, this long hallway that leads to the other bedrooms could potentially be a gallery of photos or of art - this would connect the spaces and amp up the sense of the unique we have established everywhere else. This is a home that will feel like a big hug, full of the richness and love of a matriarch whose strength has never failed her. The rock of the Ratliff clan.

Internal courtyard:

What a massive opportunity this is. We get rid of the astroturf and create a mildly modern italian or french vibe that will be a perfect spot on a windy day to sit outside and eat lunch or read a book. It is so central to the living area and therefore right in the eyeline, but right now, it’s way out in the cold.

It will all take time, of course, but given that the foundations of it all are so so so strong, it will be so so so FUN to bring creativity and care to its renovation - something you no doubt had imagined you’d do when you initially purchased the place. That was then, this is now, and I’d love to help.

Hxx