BLUE HORIZONS

CURATED PIECES, PATTERN AND WELCOME SPLASHES OF AZURE PUT AN INTERIORS STYLIST’S STAMP ON THIS READY-MADE BEAUTY ON SYDNEY’S NORTH SHORE

- CHRIS PEARSON

BESPOKE BEAUTY

It’s the details that turned this striking house on Sydney’s North Shore into a home for Sonja, her husband David and their six adult children who regularly visit. Guests get a sense of this as soon as they step into the entrance (above). “This wallpaper makes a statement and sets the scene for what lies beyond,” says Sonja (pictured opposite, with cavoodles Louis, left, and Indie). The Colefax and Fowler wallpaper (for similar, try Colefax and Fowler Snow Tree) is the perfect backdrop for a Ralph Lauren ‘Foo Dog’ table lamp, Eichholtz ‘Windolf’ sconce and Hamptons mirror, all from Sonja’s store Home & Clan. “With so much choice, I have to rein myself in,” she says. On the base of the Coco Republic console sits an Elephant Duke sculpture by artist Donald Greig. “The French antique jardiniere [opposite] was a second-hand find,” says Sonja.

Taking the odd risk or two comes easily to Sonja, the owner of this luminous home on Sydney’s lower North Shore. When the interiors stylist and homewares retailer and her husband David bought the home a decade ago, it wasn’t the usual bid-in-the-front-yard occasion. Instead, the couple, who a few years earlier blended their two families to create one of eight (including the pair’s three daughters and three sons, all aged between 14 and 20) bought the home by phone while travelling on a train between Paris and Brussels. The gamble paid off beautifully. “I fell in love with the house the moment I saw it and it has worked out so well for everyone,” says Sonja, of the charming six-bedroom harbourside home.