Last week Tara and I made a bit of a rash decision and decided it was necessary (actually was) to re-visit Turkey. I can definitely think of worse “necessary” places to visit so yes we are lucky – off to Turkey to do some work – not a bad thing!

We love Turkey! Once we got over the inevitable plane trip which I don’t really enjoy, the thought of fresh food and being surrounded by beautiful architecture, food and of course carpets was almost too much to look forward to…almost. Our main reason for the visit was to source more amazing Turkish overdyed rugs as well as other textiles from cultural places like Afghanistan (hats) and Uzbekistan (Suzannis). To see some of whats on the way, Tara has all the overdyed carpets in the first shipment due to arrive posted on her blog at Few and Far – http://www.fewandfar.com.au/blog/

Above is a Turquoise Overdyed Patchwork, which has to be seen to be appreciated. turquoise is the hardest colour to reproduce onto a digital image so the in person these colours are like looking over your favourite Pacific coral reef on the clearest day. We also another three Turquoise pieces coming soon, some in One Piece Carpets, rather than patchwork rugs.

Personally of all the overdyed rug colour choices, I really love the “antique” wash pieces. These ones use slightly different carpets and have a nice soft beige wash with usually soft pink fleshy tones where the carpets have faded in some pieces. The antique wash carpets also contain pieces of Herki Rugs – My favourite Anatolian style. Tara has also included some information on the process of the overdyed carpets so worth a look at her blog as well.

By the way – It’s a big call, but I have to say that I have found my favourite ever piece…by that I mean, of all the things we have seen and bought – this is it – a Turkish Herki rug. They are a tribe from south east Anatolia and before I even knew who and where they were from, I was drawn to Herki rugs. I kept searching through piles of rugs and as anyone who has been to this part of the world knows, that’s thousands of them, but I would always find one and go – whoa! I like this one! They were always the same style and after realizing the patterns etc seemed similar with every choice, I was later informed I was drawn to the Herkis and still am. Anyway, I asked one of our suppliers if he had any Herkis and sure enough, one of the pieces he bought to us is the most amazing carpet I have ever seen. I won’t explain it but wait until it arrives and take an image – can’t wait to see it again – it blew my mind. We don’t even really have the space for it in our home, but I am happy to let it sit neatly folded until a day comes to use it.

Above is a great example of a vintage Pala Kilim Patchwork. We have a few more on the way as well as cushion covers (which are amazing) on the way. The texture and colours in these carpets are beautiful. Wait till you see the cushion covers – all one-offs. Pala Kilims are very special as they contain a complex weaving style that to be duplicated today just wouldn’t be feasible due to the time it takes to weave them not to mention all the colours used. I am dying to get all the samples and be left alone in front of the studio wall for a couple of days – hopefully I can capture it all and do them justice.

One of Taras good friends has been pushing us to get more exposure lately, which we want of course, but when it requires putting yourself out there personally for everyone to see it’s not that easy to do. Some people find it too easy for me, but I guess we are quite personal, private people. The other thing to consider with us is that we are hard markers, don’t worry, only on ourselves. So knowing all our energy (a polite way of saying money) in the last 3 years has gone into one shop, then another and a few other biggies, our poor little home has been left wanting.

In the last few months we have gradually been putting pieces aside and finally giving rooms some love. Having storage finally built for the empty spaces that have existed for years, buying sofas we have always wanted and bringing some “finds” from our travels home, bypassing the usual route to the shop and other people’s homes. We are so far away from calling it even almost done, which is the norm I think, but it’s looking like a home. We still have an office to do, guest room, paving ouside, garden issues….you get the idea. It can take years of even trying to finish styling your own home, but in a way – it should. I recently heard a well known stylists criticising “the block” for it’s urgency I guess. A beautiful home takes time and should be filled with things that inspire and tell a story and I know we always rave on about it, but it makes the difference between an interesting interior and as Abigail ahern would say – a dull one. Don’t worry, we still find the block fun to watch at times.

So with Gemma on our case we filled the van with pieces we had threatened to steal for ages and pushed a few more things around and snapped a few shots of rooms we considered interesting. That was a week or two ago and this morning we saw our pics on interiors addict (view the post here http://theinteriorsaddict.com/colourful-home-showcases-couples-travel-treasures#more-8331). So Thanks to Gemma for the push and to Jen Bishop from Interiors Addict for the kind words, we are very appreciative.

So as awkward as it feels to let everyone in our home – Welcome, nice of you to drop by.

The only problem is now Tara will be pushing – let’s finish it! Anyone know a good paver?

Keelah is actually supposed to, and usually does sleep on her Turkish camel bag (to her left). She loves the tribal beni Ourain rug…pure sheeps wool, and soft. We are still on the hunt for coffee tables (to replace Keelah…ha) – thinking a set possibly. We’ll know we find them. We deliberated quite a lot over our lounge, wanting colour and wanting velvet – and wanting something modern to go against tribal rugs and antique art. We love it!

The wooden sculpture I dragged home when I was 22 from Indonesia – 60kgs overweight on an airline? – young and naive. There is actually a great story to this one. In the end it came to sydney in it’s own little container which my Mum and I had to drive into the airport baggage section to load into our ute. How I managed that without paying a cent is a miracle. the Rhino is an Illustration I did when I was 24. The orangutan when i was at Uni doing design and there is another of a tiger I did in fourth class, probably my most proudest piece. Oh and a few pics of great occasions like our wedding and holidays in frames we bought all over the place.

On our last trip to China we fell in love with this artwork, the scrolls themselves are over a century old and speak of luck, fortune and the ocean – I wish for all of them?

The hall runner we bought in Turkey, I personally love bright pinks and orange as a combination. I also have an addiction to rugs. The room to left in the shot (our study) has quite a few in there waiting for the right time to hit the floor somewhere.

The bedhead is a ceiling panel from India we bought a couple of trips ago now and has been in the warehouse a while. Kantha bedspreads are becoming so popular and for good reason. They are all unique, vintage and usually have amazing patterns and prints.

talk soon
danny

I think I would get jetlag on a trip from the blue mountains to the harbour bridge these days! We came back from our most recent trip to India and getting back into a sleeping pattern hasn’t been easy. I would not have thought a trip to India could throw us out so much…anyway I have finally gotten around to posting another blog. Seems we do far more on facebook these days?

I thought I’d share a few peeks at some unique pieces on the way. It is barely a peek really, we tend to fit quite a lot in a container. This shipment has  some pieces that i think will be very popular based on similar pieces that didn’t last long at all previously (old railings and panels, indian daybeds etc) and new finds like old metal ceiling panels and amazing stone pieces from temples and heritage buildings.

We are fingers crossed this shipment will be here for early December, so once it all arrives I’ll take loads of shots and post them out.

We love these Tribal Grinding bowls – They will make amazing stools or sidetables. Also have so much new furniture coming including bone inlay in new colours Navy and Brown.

We have so much more unique furniture and side tables than ever before. We love the cabinet made from old shutters in white. The stone pieces are some of our favourite finds. I can see this one with tealights in the arches…

Monday we scheduled as the big shoot day – photographs of course. I have actually been a little nervous about it all to be honest. I’ve been blogging and blabbing about this wall we’ve built in the warehouse…ok so I’ve described it’s every point and purpose so Monday was the day to see if we could actually put some style together that would look like …we had style I guess.

We planned our mission with sketches and inspiration the week leading up to it. Sounds like a full on effort, but seriously we sat down for half an hour really. “Rug here, stool there, branches from the shed, Moroccan tealights….we need something here to balance….what else do we have that’s green….” get the idea? So Monday morning we got to the shops (late actually – not planned) raided both of what we needed and packed them into our new van and headed for the warehouse.

To cut a short story shorter in a matter of four hours we had five reasonable shots with our little canon and it’s $160.00 lens which we were pretty optimistic about. Those little digital screens on the back of the camera always makes things seem great, but I’ve been fooled before so I didn’t have my hopes up too much until I had downloaded the images. Anyway, barring a few minor things I think we did quite well and we are very happy with the results. Happy campers!

With the five images, we will use them to email out as newsletters with product descriptions. I really want to just send all five out now and do more but that doesn’t make sense really, however, we will fire off a newsletter a week, which going on our track record is a massive improvement from well one a year. Now we can’t wait to do more shooting, we have around 80 pieces of furniture (easily) in stock right now so plenty of potential models waiting for their big moment. Shooting in front of a clean wall is great. In store we tend to carry a lot of stock and therefore things can get a little overcrowded sometimes, but necessary. In the warehouse it was great to have a space and be selective with choices and balance of product. It was fun!

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