Home Away From Home | Secret Life of Cottage

This is the story of a cottage that has kept her past tucked neatly within her weatherboards. Daylight dances through the rooms and falls on surfaces that have stood in place for a hundred-plus years. The exact historical details are a little hazy but the cottage quietly hums with a knowing, calm assurance.

Secret Life of Cottage is swaddled by the leafy streets of Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains. Her owners, Mountain’s locals Olivia and Rowan, have spent a handful of years carefully updating the spaces and judiciously layering them with secondhand finds and reclaimed materials. The new dovetails into the old here, with subtle and skilful architectural tweaks implemented with comfort, inviting beauty, and sustainability in mind. Under Olivia and Rowans careful tending, a pretty garden emerges from the shady nooks and frames the property with seasonal colour. As you take in the delicate soundscape of bees and birdsong, a lush lawn invites you to lounge.

Welcome to Secret Life of Cottage, where life feels lighter, quieter, and the urge to slow down is impossible to resist.

What is the story behind Secret Life of Cottage? If the walls could talk, what would they say?

We created Secret Life of Cottage as a kind of physical expression of our love and connection to the Blue Mountains, our obsession with travelling and experiencing beautiful spaces and more specifically, a compulsion I’ve not been able to successfully escape in my life – to host things. Dinners, lunches, parties, whatever it is, I love to bring people together and make people feel looked after, in a beautiful atmosphere.

The walls have been very secretive. We know its over 100 years old and while we did our best to try and understand the history, we were continuously met with hilariously little. We left it all alone as it was feeling forced and called it a secret. One New Years day, while gardening out the front, we met a lovely couple walking their dog who gave us a wonderful verbal history – one of them grew up across the road – a lovely story that is now our little secret to keep!

“We created Secret Life of Cottage as a kind of physical expression of our love and connection to the Blue Mountains, our obsession with travelling and experiencing beautiful spaces...”

We love your eco-conscious approach to restoring the cottage. Tell us how you renovated the old home in an easy-on-the-planet way.

The greenest building is the one that is already built and so saving a building from ruin and eventual demolition is a strong start. We thought a lot about what was enough and achieving maximum impact with as little material as possible – known as dematerialising, which works to reduce the initial embodied carbon sunk into a building. We also thought a lot about life cycle – where does the thing we are choosing go at the end of its life – and this always led to using noble materials.

These ideas translated into things like very simple and open kitchen & bathroom cabinetry, insulating the walls and ceiling, custom matching the external cladding in places to avoid re-cladding the entire cottage, using recycled doors and windows, removing all the noxious weeds and looking after the soil and finally – getting the building off gas! We are now fully electric and connected to green power.

“The greenest building is the one that is already built and so saving a building from ruin and eventual demolition is a strong start.”

Above right: Southern Wild Co’s Room & Linen Mist in Our Place is a welcome addition to the kitchen for neutralising cooking odours and bringing in the scent of the bush.

A home is made of interesting layers and thoughtful touches. How did you go about decorating the cottage and making a home away from home for others?

For me, a home is about finding that lovely sweet spot where things are both super beautiful and very functional. This kind of removes unnecessary clutter but avoids a stark minimalism, where everything is packed away. It was important to me that the cottage felt like home for others instantly and so it needed to be easy to use – to avoid that feeling of needing to open every cupboard door to work out where everything is, when first settling in.

I started with distilling how I wanted the space to look and feel – restrained, timeless, warm & inviting. It became a personal challenge to achieve this with as much preloved furnishings as possible. It can and did become quite consuming – two years of scouring Marketplace and auctions with a very specific list – the tight back, roll-arm lounge and the $10 cedar cabinet we refurbished are a couple of my favourites.

Where I couldn’t find the perfect item, it came from our home or I made it myself. It was very organic and happenstance – a colleague was selling three marble shelves she no longer needed and I so took them without knowing what Id use them for. They ended up being used as platters for my big 40th birthday bash (the tomato imprint from the Caprese salad is very visible!) and I then designed and made little pine plinths for them – one is the coffee table, the other a plinth for the stereo and the third, the bedroom luggage shelf. I also built the sitting bench in the kitchen.

“It was important to me that the cottage felt like home for others instantly and so it needed to be easy to use...”

Where do you recommend your guests visit for local experiences that appeal to the heart, mind, eyes and belly?

The Blue Mountains are full of such goodness! We have many rituals that soothe and replenish us. We love early mornings at Black Cockatoo Bakery, sourdough in hand and finishing your croissant before the coffee is even served! Summer picnics under the cherry trees in the Leura Everglades Gardens are cool and calming. Midweek hanging out at the most incredible vistas – Lincoln’s Rock is possibly our favourite low key lookout. Immersing yourself in local bush and completely nerding out with some bird watching.

Buying our groceries from the Blue Mountains Co-op, the largest food co-op in Australia, makes us feel very grateful. Grabbing beer to go from Mountain Culture or picking a bottle of natural wine from Frankie and Mo’s in Blackheath is also a treat. Last but not at all least – celebratory (we find lots of little reasons to celebrate!) dinner at Tempus in Katoomba – their ethos is centred around sustainability, place and community. They have the most incredible all Australian drinks list – spirits and all! Highly recommend.

“We love early mornings at Black Cockatoo Bakery, sourdough in hand and finishing your croissant before the coffee is even served!”

What is your favourite time of day, your favourite season, and your favourite spot at Secret Life of Cottage?

Seasonality is very strong in the upper Blue Mountains and they are all equally special. A sunny spring afternoon, doors all flung open, laying in sunny grass is pure bliss. A sunny winters day spent reading on the lounge. That first chilly night and lighting the first fire of the season, with a glass of something lovely in hand.

What rituals make you feel at home, wherever you may be in the world?

Waking up early that first day of being somewhere new –  a hot shower followed by a freshly brewed cup of strong black coffee before heading out and I’m completely ready for the day.

What Southern Wild Co scent is the perfect fit for the Secret Life of Cottage and why?

Southern Wild Co’s Our Place couldn’t be more perfect fit for the cottage – Australian bush blossoms carried by a warm breeze together with Dorothea’s poem about a land of ragged mountain ranges, which are only just down the road.

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@secretlifeofcottage
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Images & interview by Jessica Bellef.