Create a kitchen garden
Convenient and lovely to look at, a kitchen garden is a great way to level-up your cooking and outside space. A kitchen garden is a dedicated, often small garden space for raised beds, planters, or a backyard plot, to grow vegetables, fruit, herbs, and edible flowers for daily cooking. Positioned close to the […]
Curating calm
Breathe in, exhale. Bring Pantone’s Colour of the Year, Cloud Dancer (the soft, airy white you’re seeing everywhere) home to gently ground your living space – a calm from the chaos. Reduce clutter in the kitchen: Strip your kitchen benches back, keeping only the essentials – a few jars or condiments, some fresh […]
Styling bookshelves
Who doesn’t love a cosy reading nook or a wall of well-loved books? Thoughtfully styled shelves add warmth and character, turning everyday storage into a design feature. There’s something instantly comforting about shelves lined with stories, spines softened by time, and objects collected along the way. Books have a quiet magic in the […]
All loved up
What says they’re your one true love? A bottle of pink Veuve Clicquot, a Versace mug, or candy hearts (Simon Lewis Wards style) of course. Look no further than our Valentine’s Day gift guide – we put the thought in so you don’t have to.
Buckets of beauty
Take your valentine (or ‘galentine’) to one of Canterbury’s best flower farms for a bouquet made much more personal. KATE WILLIAMS, THE AFTER-HOURS STYLIST Beloved Canterbury-based author and floral stylist, book ahead and secure your spot for a 7 or 12 February ‘pick your own’ session at Kate Williams’ flower fields in Prebbleton. […]
Laze about
Take a seat. Relax. Unwind. All you need is a chair that invites hours of lounging in the sun with a good drink and a better book. Here are our favourites to help you live out the rest of summer in style and comfort.
Cushion couture: Designer Becky Lee
Christchurch is home to a kaleidoscope of colour in cushion form. “Without apology I am a self-confessed colour-holic from the tip of my ruby red slippers to the top of my tiara,” interior designer Becky Lee says, better known as The Cushion Couturier. “As far as black goes I own a studded black […]
Chairs to that
Visualise yourself basking in the summer sun, comfortably reclining on your favourite chair. Now, what makes the perfect outdoor chair? With endless considerations from durability, aesthetics, to comfort, practicality, and price, finding furniture can be overwhelming. Before you seek out the chair of your dreams, consider the chair’s function. Why do you want […]
Landscape to living space
Canterbury’s iconic landscapes inspire the latest in summer colour trends. Light, fresh, and easy to live with – that’s the brief for summer colour according to Dulux colour forecasters. Romantic tones and airy pastels represent a shift from bold statements to softer hues that work with natural light and bring a sense of […]
A clean approach
There are product updates, and then there are course corrections. Metropol’s Gadget Guy Ian Knott finds that the ECOVACS X11 Omnicyclone robot vacuum feels very much like the latter. It is still worth looking back a little, because there was a period where ECOVACS experimented with a square-bodied design. On paper, the idea […]












