Interior designer Josie Simpson of Altus Design Studio purchased this Blue Mountains property in 2019. While the settlement took longer than expected, she used the time to collect all her ideas and inspiration buzzing around her head for a unique new accommodation offering.

Cloud Parade is the result of all that planning. With sublime escarpment views and a clean, contemporary interior scheme, Josie has created a cosy and sympathetic companion to the spectacular national park surrounding this home.

Making the most of potentially the best views in the country? Mission accomplished!

As you probably know, TDF is a tiny team, but we are so lucky to have a wonderful network of contributors from across Australia that help us to bring you coverage of creative happenings from outside our Melbourne base. Today we’re excited to welcome writer Karen Locke and photographer Honey Atkinson of Will Work For Food to the fold.

Each month, the duo will be travelling to rural and regional areas across the country to bring you insights into the lives of those living sustainably, on and from the land.

Today Karen and Honey visit the Hunter Region of New South Wales, where they meet Vanessa Garcia and Dominique Northam of The Flower Farm Collective.

Even though it feels like winter only started about five seconds ago, somehow we’ve passed the halfway point and spring is somewhat in sight! Now it’s time to consider how to get your natural landscape ready for early spring, as the soil starts to warm up and the wattles burst into flower.

Legendary local Landscape Designer and our good friend Phillip Withers is here with some sound advice for taking care of your winter garden and prepping for the coming months! 

Today our gardens columnist Georgina Reid introduces a brilliant example of communal gardening in inner city Sydney.

Welcome to McElhone Place, Surry Hills, aka ‘Cat Alley’, known for it’s lush street garden, planted and maintained by local residents.

There aren’t many Melburnians who’ve rented the same inner-city property for eight years, but when your place is this good… you do everything you can to hold onto it!

Writer and founder of beauty brand Fluff, Erika Geraerts, is the proud long-term renter of this converted warehouse in Collingwood. The apartment is part of the old Foy & Gibson complex – a circa 1887 factory that provided goods to the Foy & Gibson department stores, and employed over 2000 people at its peak.

Today it’s a close-knit residential community, and one of the few true ‘New York-style’ warehouse conversions in town. Take a look inside!

People say that even if you don’t recognise a famous face when you pass one in the street, they still have a superstar quality about them that turns your head. ‘They must be a celebrity,’ we mutter under our breaths, and scorn the lack of reverse-Google Image search in the real world.

The innate starpower of these born performers gives them an aura, a glow, a whiff of godly magnetism. If you don’t believe me, scroll on through these photos of actor, Chloé Zuel, who plays Eliza Hamilton (the lead female role!) in Australia’s production of Hamilton.

Despite this seemingly inexhaustible energy that comes with a performer’s confidence, stage work is a gruelling, exhausting and nerve-wracking job. But it’s also an exhilarating one, particularly when it’s in a musical at the forefront of a pop culture reckoning. When it debuted on Broadway in 2015, Hamilton swept up a record 16 nominations at the Tony Awards, winning 11 of them – plus a Pulitzer Prize for Drama for its writer and star, Lin Manuel Miranda. Its world domination has continued steadily, with the production landing on Sydney’s sunny shores last year and now making it’s way to Melbourne in the coming months.

Amongst this heady mix of glamour and the grit, we followed Chloé around for a day in her hardworking shoes to see just what it’s like behind the scenes of the world’s most famous musical. Between morning meditation at her home in Clovelly to battling nerves and navigating upside-down days (she has dinner at 5pm and starts work after!) – we talked self-doubt under the spotlight, making musicals cool again, and, of course, work!