Inside The Little Italian School
Benvenuti a casa nostra !
Around November last year I had the pleasure of having the company of Kristie Castagna from Elements at Home and Denise Rix Photographer at my Italian School. Kristie wanted to shoot our home above the school for one of her blogs.
When a vision becomes a reality
I always knew our home was very close to my heart. It’s a twelve year old girl’s vision made a reality. With a lot of double shifts and penny saving over the years my husband and I were finally able to make it happen. Though I wasn’t really aware of just how close to my heart it was until Kristie drove up the driveway with a boot full of props to style it! My heart sank and I had a million things running through my head. I wondered where on earth she would put all of it and I had visions of this minimal contemporary Italian farmhouse becoming a ‘trendy’ space of clutter.
I like what I like
We all have different taste, and to be honest, when I designed and styled our home, I didn’t design it so it would appeal to anyone but myself. I’ve never been one to be influenced by what others think or by what’s on trend. I simply like what I like. For me, it's classic, timeless, less is more beauty. The only thing we like to clutter our home with is family and close friends eating and drinking! I'm not a big fan of colour because I find it too busy and I tire of it easily. I’d say it reflects my personality a lot too. I'm just a black and white, what you see is what you get kind of person. Fancy is definitely not my forte! Boring for some but perfect for me. Probably not the ideal person for Kristie to work with!
The first room Kristie wanted to shoot was the dining area. She used an old table cloth I picked up at the markets in Italy last year and put our citrus bowl in the middle of it. The most colourful I've ever seen our home look! On the fireplace, I usually keep a little ceramic sculpture our friends gave us for our wedding in Italy. Kristie replaced it with a small sculpture of la Madonna that my nonna gave me, an African wooden wall piece our friends gave to us in Italy when we left to move to Australia, an enlarged photo of my nonna from her passport when she moved to Australia, and a print of a religious piece I bought in Italy about fifteen years ago.
Once the kitchen/dining was done, it was onto the bedroom, bathroom and terrace. One of Kristie’s beautiful floor vases I really loved was used in the corner of the main bedroom where I usually keep a pretty white cane chair.
Hand Me Downs
The handmade bed spread from Italy was given to me by my nonna who is 94 this year and as amazing as ever, and it’s so stunning it takes my breath away every time I walk past it. For me, most of the beauty of our home is in the architecture more than the furniture, and most of all, in the energy of all the little hand me downs from family members here and in Italy. I’m very sentimental and I just absolutely adore all of our little family hand me downs. They are part of what gives life to our home, and they create warm conversation when we are entertaining and tell our stories. I think they also help to create that 'lived in' feel we are told our home has.
A Great Experience
In the end, it was a fantastic experience, and the girls did an amazing job considering I'm not the easiest person to persuade! Kristie’s blog at Elements at Home is where you’ll be able to see the final product soon. Denise and Kristie both did a wonderful job of capturing the spaces of our family home above the Italian school. Lessons are held in the ‘tavernetta’ part of the home where we entertain and make our sausages, vino and pickled products from the garden when it’s not full of students learning ‘la dolce lingua’ or making pasta and other traditional Italian dishes.