Scandinavian Style in New Zealand
Gemma Cagnacci and Andrew Meehan spend most of their time in an apartment in Sydney, but a couple of times a year, they travel to Dunedin, New Zealand to visit Andrew’s family. And when there, they stay in their own little cabin on his parents’ property. It was initially an old railway cabin used by rail workers who were laying tracks in New Zealand, and as a teenager, Andrew used the cabin as his bedroom (He was one lucky teenager!). Then, a little over a year ago, the couple decided to make it into a vacation retreat. Gemma is a designer for a textile company by day where she creates products for various Australian retailers, and in her spare time, she runs Line x Color x Shape, a blog about all things aesthetic. Andrew is a designer for a renowned Australian architectural firm and has a background in retail design. So when these two put their heads together to come up with a design for the cottage, they had a pretty solid sense of what they were looking for. They aimed to create a space that was clean, simple and light-filled with some warmth. They took a lot of inspiration from Scandinavian interiors, but wanted to be sure to reference the cabin’s Pacific location by sourcing pieces from New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and also from their travels around the world. -Amy
Photography by Gemma Cagnacci
Image above: “The exterior is painted in Double Cod Grey by Resene Paints,” Gemma says. “The cabin was originally an old railway shelter used by railway workers in remote locations. It then had a second life as Andrew’s bedroom when he was a teenager, and was renovated just over a year ago by us to use when visiting Andrew’s family on their farm in Dunedin, New Zealand.”
Image above: “The bed was found and bought on Trade Me (a New Zealand version of eBay) before we flew in to do-up the space, the rug is a vintage Afghan carpet, the artwork above the bed is an old bark tapa cloth from Papua New Guinea, the suitcase belonged to Andrew’s grandfather, and Andrew found the log on the property which we then turned into a bedside table/stool.”
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