El’s light-filled living room. “I love that I’m surrounded by my treasures when I’m in this room. Things I’ve either inherited or collected over the years. It’s a really personal space that I’ve put my heart and soul into.”

El’s favourite piece in the room is this blackboard with it’s ornate metal frame. “The frame came from a dusty antiques shop in Melbourne. It was black from neglect and covered in about forty years worth of dust, but it was love at first sight!”

El is often either working on, or thinking about a project to undertake around the home. Her latest plan is to paint her 1960s cocktail cabinet in duck egg blue… she just has to work on convincing her husband!

El’s parents on their wedding day 48 years ago. “To me, they symbolise what a marriage should be. They were best friends, always laughing together and totally inseparable.”

“I love having lots of flowers in this room. Sam usually buys me a bunch every weekend. Only thing is, I’m notoriously bad at arranging them! I like to mix real flowers with artificial ones. With the fakes, the arranging has been done for me and they’ll last as long I want them too!”

El has long been a fan of the work of Sir Gerald Kelly. The blue print was her first, then when she spotted the other in Chapel Street, she of course had to make a pair!

“I love collecting vintage Queen Elizabeth memorabilia. HRH was quite a looker in her younger days! We used to joke to my grand mother that she looked a little the Queen, so I’ve got a bit of a soft spot for her. My collection is also a beautiful way to pay homage to my homeland!”

“I’ve always loved the idea of open shelving in a kitchen, so I decided to remove the doors from one of my cupboards. I couldn’t leave the unit all white,  so I went to work on it with squares of paper and washi tape! It’s a great place to display all my cute and kitsch collections. I call these my ‘Happy Shelves’!”

There’s nothing like a great piece of furniture with an even greater story behind it! “I’d been lusting after a mosaic mirror table for quite sometime so I was beyond excited to find one at Camberwell Market one Sunday. Sam wasn’t interest at all! He turned his nose up at it and said there was no way he was going to have that piece of ‘rubbish’ in our house! He walked off and left me standing there open mouthed and wondering what alien life form had taken over my husband’s body! I was crushed. I didn’t speak to him for the rest of the morning or on our car journey home! What I didn’t know was that he’d already bought one a couple of weeks earlier and was having it restored for my birthday!”