For television presenter Catriona Rowntree, Christmas is a time to show her true colours, as she decorates her rural Victorian home with lavish swathes of bright, saturated hues and baubles bought on her travels. “Beige be gone,” she laughs. “I have no restraint with colour. I adore its personality and energy, and whether dressing for TV or dressing my home, I love to shift the mood using colour.”
With the festive season meaning a large gathering of the clans – either with her husband James’ family in the country or with her Sydney-based relatives – the celebration is always based on the traditions from her childhood.
“Everything I do has been informed by my mum. When I was a little girl she entrusted me with setting the table, starting with picking flowers from the garden to place in vases. Now it is my absolute joy to create a beautiful table for loved ones. We always hang stockings and my children, Andrew and Charlie, love putting up the tree – some years it’s a real one, other times we use an artificial tree from my favourite store, Lily Pond in Geelong.”
Who lives here?
Television presenter, Catriona Rowntree, her husband, sheep and grain farmer James Pettit, their sons Andrew, 16, and Charlie, 14, four cats, one Sheepdog, eight chickens, Paul Bangay’s rooster Neil, and “too many” sheep
Your best decorating tip? “If you see something you like in a magazine, rip out the page and show it to whoever might be able to bring it to life. Trust their creativity and anything is possible.”
Do you have a signature Christmas dish? “I’m a cook with L-plates. A surprise and delight for me is that my children love my baking – especially the triple-chocolatebrownies – so that’s all that matters.”
Trimmed with decorations that Catriona purchased on her travels for Channel Nine’s Getaway program, the tree is the sparkling centrepiece. “This year I’m focusing on pink and red,” she says, adding that the family also puts a lot of thought and effort into presents. “Everyone enjoys the fun of unwrapping a gift, so we avoid vouchers!”
The rituals of the season enhance Catriona’s love of her life in the country. “I’m a city chick who moved to the country and I love every detail of my life here,” she says.
WE LOVE…pretty practicalities
With her predilection for French Provincial style, Catriona says it’s sometimes tricky to balance her desire for pretty with her husband James’ wish for practical. But both can prevail, and such is the case with their rangehood trim. Armed with a photo of a scalloped trim that she saw in Provence, Catriona asked her carpenter to recreate the detail. The result brings joy and preserves practicality. For French Provincial style, see xavierfurniture.com.au
Putting her stamp on the bluestone cottage, originally built around the 1860s and where the family now lives, was important to Catriona. “When I started dating my husband and first saw the house, it was derelict, sitting in a dirt paddock with huge cracks in the walls. But eventually, I realised it doesn’t have to be anything it is not, and so I leaned into the character of the Australian worker’s cottage.”
To create the couple’s family home, Catriona sought help from Lindy Irons of About Interiors and took advice from interior designers Adelaide Bragg and Anna Spiro. The old guest house, which Catriona named Auchterarder after her grandfather’s hometown in Scotland, got a new lease on life, as did the stone barn, originally built in the 1870s.
When it came to the garden, she befriended landscape design guru Paul Bangay, who lives close by. “Now when he wants to change something in his garden, he calls and says, ‘bring the ute’,” shares Catriona.
Plants and cuttings from his property, as well as from other local friends, mean her garden now has “pink silene blossoms for days, masses of roses and always something in flower. We haven’t spent a fortune on the garden, but we have many beautiful gifted pieces,” she says.
Elsewhere, Catriona has indulged her love of faience pottery, richly detailed Manuel Canovas fabrics and “lucky charms” such as wheat motifs in reference to the farm. “Much to my husband’s chagrin, if I see something I love, I just grab it,” she says.
Hence, armfuls of blue and white tiles from Portugal have been carried home in her luggage, as well as delicate French homewares from the late Doris Brynner’s collection for Christian Dior. Auction houses are also a source of immense delight for Catriona, and among her recent, most-prized acquisitions are the late artist Mirka Mora’s handpainted door stops, which she purchased from Leonard Joel.
Every piece in my home has a story behind it and is most definitely travel-influenced.” Catriona
de la Carrière in France. (Credit: Photography: Leon Schoots / Styling: Belle Hemming & Kim West)
Thanks to her frequent visits to Asia, Catriona says she is feng shui-obsessed and loves to keep everything neatly arranged in baskets and cupboards. One of the most utilised and much-loved rooms in her home is the mudroom – a practical space that the presenter prettied up by stencilling the floor. “I’ve also stencilled the chicken coop,” she confesses with a laugh.
The mudroom does double duty as a pantry as well as her flower-arranging room and she fills the sink with blooms from her own garden or from local florist Georgie Stanton before transferring them to vases.
While Catriona acknowledges it was a challenge to move from the city to the country, it is one she has embraced with enthusiasm and the home she has decorated so elegantly is now her sanctuary.
It’s all about that beautiful community we certainly landed on our feet where we live.” Catriona
Source book
Interior design About Interiors, 0419 418 423, and Adelaide Bragg Interiors, adelaidebragg.com.au
Joinery SCLK, sclk.com.au
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