Cara
Sicilian Ocean Teal

Living near the beach formed such a central part of my life, everyone's life there. Some summers I’d spend almost every day going to the beach with friends. As a kid we'd spend the day at the beach and then on your way home get some lollies as a treat. it came back to that socialising, you meet your friends at the beach, you go for a swim, have a sun bake, take some snacks. Definitely some summers we were there all day, every day. That freedom to be able to go and float and think, it’s so regenerating to be near water. So good for your soul. We still try to get to the beach as often as we can.

Nich and I got married just over a year ago and we bought this house together two years ago. The house was the first house on the street, so it's quite old. The woman who owned it before us, her dad built it and she lived here her whole life. It was really not touched much at all, but we've done some work to the front yard and painted the front door a beautiful emerald green colour.

We have our families over for Christmas each year and last year we made it Sicilian style long lunch. We set up some big tables in the backyard. We've got a really big backyard and it's all concrete. We set up two big, long tables and we decorated it all in a Sicilian theme. We bought the wine cooler – made in Italy – as the perfect sea-inspired piece.

The deep emerald in the stripes on the wine cooler is such an interesting colour. It comes out whenever we're entertaining people, which is ultimately what we love to do in our home and what we love to do together. We feel super fortunate to be able to have a home and make it our own space – one that really represents who we are.

We live in such an urban jungle but, in our yard, we've got big veggie patches and bees and we really try and bring a sense of solace and tranquillity in our own space. Whether we are having 20 people over or whether it's just the two of us, it's our comfort zone. The same as the ocean is our comfort zone.