Blog

Shelter – How Australians Live

It has been a loooong time between drinks here on the blog, but I’m back in the blogging chair with some big news to hit you with! ~~I promise I won’t leave like that again.~~

If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook you might have seen that I spent most of last year travelling all over Australia – meeting strangers, driving down dirt tracks and getting lost. But most importantly I was documenting authentic interiors I found along the way and the people who live within our vast Australian landscape.

I can finally reveal all that nomadic behaviour was for a book – my book! I just received the first advance copy hot off the press and I’m so excited to tell you more about it.

I had this idea for an interiors book which was quintessentially Australian.

A book which documented the tired, rambling, crumbling and authentic homes which we are so familiar with, yet are seldom celebrated in the pages of magazines. I had grown tired of looking abroad for inspiration and interior trends which never suit the Australian climate.

While driving through country Australia I found myself looking to the landscape here and becoming more sympathetic towards our older homes and growing more curious of the interiors of these old homes.

Strangely or perhaps because ‘things happen for a reason’ Penguin Lantern got in touch and offered me a book deal, so I told them my idea…

I spent the rest of the year unearthing and finding authentic homes.

I followed a ‘bush telegraph’ in conversation. I would talk to one person who had an interesting home in country Victoria and they would say ‘Kara, you need to go to Tasmania, my brothers next door neighbour has this amazing old shack – you would love it’ – so I would go. Following the conversation all over the country. Being welcomed into strangers homes and documenting how Australians live.

From a tiny wooden shack in northern NSW with no electricity, to a remote island in the heart of the D’Entrecasteaux Channel in Tasmania. If the home sounded like it had spirit, I would go.

It’s weird to have a book you know. I look at it now, ~~literally, it’s next to me as I type this,~~ and it contains all the emotion of probably the best year of my life. That sense of freedom which you only allow yourself to feel when you don’t know where you are going….

Over the next couple of months I’ll be sharing some behind the scenes looks at the book. If you’ve got any questions about the book leave a comment and I’ll answer them as best I can. Also, if you’d like to hear more updates about the book join my mailing list below.

KARA’ S FAVOURITES

Shop the Story