Perched between a national park and the sea, this home is a vintage-lover’s nirvana
After decades designing interiors for others, Sibella Court poured her creative energy into her own home. The result is a light-filled space that blurs the line between work, play and family life.
By Susan Redman
Sibella Court, at home in Bundeena, NSW: “My home studio is one of my favourite places to work or tinker in.”Credit: Jennifer Soo
On the edge of the Royal National Park, just an hour south of Sydney, lies Bundeena, a tiny coastal hamlet where bird calls and sea breezes set the rhythm of daily life. It’s here that product and interior designer and creative force Sibella Court has created a layered, deeply personal home for herself and her 11-year-old daughter, Silver.
The timber cottage, likely dating to the 1930s, had been repeatedly altered over decades. What appealed to Court was not its polish but its potential. “It was relatively undone when I bought it six years ago — and that was its appeal,” she says. “And I was ready for a major renovation after working on so many hospitality and residential projects for clients.”
Upstairs, bedrooms are painted in “Threadbare”, from Court’s paint range. An artwork by Francesca Raft hangs above Court’s bed.Credit: Jennifer Soo
An artwork by Mauro Perucchetti hangs above the bar, a repurposed vintage Danish console.Credit: Jennifer Soo
Over several years Court touched every wall, surface and fitting, building extra rooms and turning the house into a kind of laboratory for her business, Sibella Court Studio. Here she trialled options for product collaborations – for paints, wallpapers, lighting, textiles, tiles and furniture – and indulged her insatiable appetite for collecting vintage pieces and antiques. “My strategy was to up-skill on the crafts I didn’t already have,” she says. “I even taught myself to hang wallpaper.”
The result is that Court’s distinctive stylistic signature appears at every turn. In the kitchen, salvaged cheese-board timber cupboards pair with open shelves lined with utilitarian crockery, giving a sense of ease and history. Hand-painted blue and white tiles underfoot in the living room bring rhythm and contrast, while deep indigo canvas painted walls create a theatrical backdrop for art and books. Staircases are dressed in seagrass runners, powder rooms glow with a crafted scallop shell grotto and custom lighting, and bathrooms mix marble with aged timber for a tactile, time-worn feel.
Court picked up the recycled timbers she used on the kitchen walls from The Salvage Yard in Castlemaine, Victoria.Credit: Jennifer Soo
Court used reclaimed Baltic pine cheese boards as shelving in a breezeway to store her large collection of tableware.Credit: Jennifer Soo
Court at home in Bundeena. The artwork is by Angus Nivison.Credit: Jennifer Soo
There’s also a constant shuffle of furniture as pieces move in and out for Court’s many design projects. “It’s definitely not a static interior,” she says.
Upstairs, bedrooms are painted in sea-washed hues from her paint range with Murobond, with windows framing glimpses of the ocean, while the studio hums with collected curiosities and the tools of her trade. “The house is always bathed in birdsong and the distant drone of a fishing boat heading out to sea,” she adds.
Court’s studio, where she enjoys painting, photography, leather work, bookbinding and botanical pressing, is like a miniature natural history museum.Credit: Jennifer Soo
Court lined her library walls with hand-stitched canvas painted a deep indigo from her paint range to create a contrasting backdrop for art and books.Credit: Jennifer Soo
The stone hearth was created from salvaged sandstone fashioned by Court’s stonemason to create a divide between the library and lounge.Credit: Jennifer Soo
“I designed the house specifically for me and all our needs, and incorporated a refuge space upstairs for Silver that catches the afternoon light,” Court explains. “I love all the rooms at different times of the day and in different seasons. My bedroom and kitchen face east, and first light is my favourite time – I wake most mornings with a gang of kookaburras in the garden telling their first joke of the day.”
Although Court once doubted she’d have time for it, the garden has become another creative outlet, planted with natives inspired by bush walks in the Royal National Park. Still, it’s the interiors that hold the strongest imprint of her restless creativity. “A house is never finished,” she says.
A petite hallway, papered and tiled in Court’s own designs, leads to her laundry, with a powder room on the left.Credit: Jennifer Soo
Court lovingly planted her garden over the past three years, inspired by her many hikes in the surrounding Royal National Park.Credit: Jennifer Soo
Layered with memory, creativity and curiosity, her bush-and-beachside home feels at once personal and expansive – a family retreat, a studio and a living canvas for a designer’s life’s work in progress.
Styling: Nadene Duncan. Hair and make-up: Annabel Barton using Sisley Paris.
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