Wellington Rd, East Brisbane

The first half of this year has seen a lot of retail activity with new shop fitouts. These are 2 shops I've just finished side by side at East Brisbane. They are on the corner of Wellington Rd and Mowbray Tce. This is #Raphy'sEspresso and the other is #BananaLeafThaiRestaurant. Both fitouts were done by Peter Ryan shopfitting.

The Thai has a feature wall full of Retro/ Vintage posters of bands, movies, products all sourced by the tenant on a recent trip back to Thailand.

These are the concept sketches for both stores.

For the coffee shop I took the brief from the land lord and didn't actually meet the tenant till they opened. The Thai was a normal job where I worked directly with the tenants to establish their concept and then complete fitout plans etc.

Both stores have been trading for a couple of weeks and already have loyal customers. The smells from Banana Leaf were amazing while we were doing the photo shoot last week. 

All the best to Mitchie of Raphy's Espresso and Thien and BB of Banana Leaf for years of happy trading.

Designex 2014

The weeks are flying at the moment with the retail world buzzing and getting busy again after a quiet 2013. Last week I squeezed in a quick day trip to Sydney for Designex. It was held at Glebe Island in the temporary Exhibition Centre while the new complex is rebuilt around at Darling Harbour.

There were a couple of exciting products and some cool stands. Have a quick tour with me.

Screen Thingy!

Brace for take off.

Totally cool cardboard pendants

Interesting realistic wallpapers

One of the bars with a bouche court- cute, cute, cute. Alas, much drinking and no sports played- that I saw anyway.

Amazing chain art.

Gold Coast lighting company Yellow Goat launching into furniture

Taubmans Paint

Just want to touch it.

And in the other corner...

Love the louvre effect.

And a lovely way to finish an afternoon of walking- a cider at Young Henry's bar. Very popular!

Happy Mother's Day

To my beautiful Mum with Love.

Sunday is all about everything beautiful for you.

We're going to gather up the family

Find something yummy

and enjoy a lazy lunch in your honour.

I would like to say thanks for teaching me to stand tall,

Thanks for being my guiding light

and for all your endless love. 

I love you Mum. Happy Mother's Day. 

xxx

Crazy Pave

I always look forward to the Easter long weekend for tackling a larger size outdoor project and doing it in the cooler weather. This weekend I've started to crazy pave a side path the full length of my house.

This project had been in the planning for a long time and when parts of the original house were demolished, I saved the bricks to use for paving.

The path so far. Yet to come is a garden edge and a sand and cement mix to fill the gaps.

My favourite thing about recycled is that it has so much more character and for me the bricks and this steel manhole cover show names of Brisbane companies that are long gone, but live on in the history of my house.

The red bricks were all from Bris Brick at Newmarket and the blond bricks from Murrarie. (word photos are loading upside down)

Stay tuned for finished photos down the track.

A couple of weeks ago I had a fun afternoon doing a photo shoot for the Courier Mail Real Estate lift out about the fun of DIY on your own house. It was published yesterday.

Battery Station Fortitude Valley

After a couple of weeks of being very slack with blogging- I am working on a couple of exciting concepts though, a recent outing to Fortitude Valley resulted in some lovely serendipity.

That gorgeous old heritage listed garage that has been boarded up for years has had new life breathed in and is now a cool cafe.

With the original signage the name evolved around that- Battery Station. 

Through out the whole interior graffiti features and works well with all the original elements retained.

There is a large courtyard out the back past the kitchen where amazing graffiti reigns supreme beside the  raw industrial edge. It's a great set up for large private functions.

The owner's dog- keen to get into some dish licking.

We dined at the front area which used to be the drive through section for the pump station and marvelled at how small cars must have been in the olden days.

As always, it's the little details I love, such as the vintage collector teaspoons- just like my Granny had hanging from display racks.

My junior dining buddy was very impressed with his scrambled egg breakfast wrap and now lists caramelized onion on his developing palette preferences. The servings we saw were huge and well priced.

A great find and well positioned opposite the Home Maker centre which has limited dining outlets.

Inspired by Warwick Fabrics

Last week I attended the Warwick Fabrics 2014 launch at their Brisbane showroom. 

The night attracted good numbers with a mix of people from designers to upholsterers, furniture manufacturers and retailers.

Warwick laid on great food and plenty of bubbles.

As well as fabric featuring for the night the full range of furniture hardware was displayed with some nice new additions inspired by recent international furniture trade fairs.

The launch was presented by Warwick MD John Mackinnon. John mixed imagery with fabrics and explained the inspiration behind some of their collections. I found it quite enjoyable to see how their design process evolves to produce the finished product. 

It was an affirmation for me that I was picking the same trends that others are. But also interesting to see how the same point of inspiration can be interpreted in many ways. 

You hear of method acting where the actor gets so into the role they feel themselves become that character. I find that sometimes when I've been creating concepts for really big projects I've had to get into "the zone" to get the best results. Sometimes it's the smallest detail that becomes the inspiration for the end result. 

Here's a bit of a look at one of Warwick's fabrics that happens to feature the Pantone colour of 2014- Radiant Orchid and mood this colour evokes.

End result....

Design name- Pilsbury Ash

And final inspirational words from Vincent Van Gogh-

"I dream my painting and I paint a dream."