An Interior Stylist’s Mountaintop Treasure Trove
Images by Nic Gossage
In her own words, interior stylist Paloma Tooth's home is in a constant ‘state of play’, illustrated through miniature furniture, hand-painted striped walls, a tomato-red four poster bed with leopard print trim, a high-gloss floor finish that once resembled an indoor pool. The dream-like setting the freelance interior stylist, her husband & woodworker Lucas and their son Raphael find themselves in floats high up in the Blue Mountains in NSW’s Katoomba. An IN BED alumni - Paloma worked at our Paddington flagship during her studies - seeing her family’s sanctuary now fills us with joy: an other worldly space limited only by their imagination.
“Our home was, until about 20 years ago, a home for tractors. The previous owner whipped it up himself, as you can see from the pretty roughly welded trusses -- but that's great for us because it means there's a minimal frame and we've been able to put windows and doors and skylights in everywhere. We added a nursery and bathroom on one end, and very recently a conservatory out the front. It had always been a dream of mine to design a conservatory off the side of a house and if it weren’t for my talented and beautiful husband Lucas who built it from scratch then I never would have guessed it would have been the one I live in! It has a glazed roof that allows light to stream in and we can see all the way up to the very top of our beloved tulip tree. We incorporated a bay window which gives us the extra space for a breakfast banquette seat and brings the lovely big hydrangea bush closer to the structure.”
The space has all the feeling of an art studio combined with the functionality of a humble country cottage home.
“It feels intimate and cosy in the winter especially when we light the fire but now with a glasshouse extension and spring has sprung all the windows and French doors can open right up to our large garden so it immediately feels bright and airy. Watching a storm from inside is pretty exciting too. Our son Raphael, who has just learnt to crawl, can explore safely in the garden where we grow our herbs, vegetables, flowers, and keep bees. The space has all the feeling of an art studio combined with the functionality of a humble country cottage home. It is not all too serious and so it fosters a sense of play. I look forward to when Raphi starts drawing on the walls. I plan to hang empty frames around his scribbles and have opening nights for his exhibitions… I will always encourage creativity in our home.”
Our Organic Cotton Towels in Oxblood & Peach compliment Paloma's ornate bathroom
“Much like our hallway, where I hand painted stripes on the walls and fitted a mirror on the ceiling to mirror the mirror table that Lucas made. Mirror mirror mirror! I enjoy the use of a mirror illusion where possible. I love change and am in a constant state of play with our home, it’s where I feel safest to experiment. Lucas was very humorous when I once painted the floors a baby blue high-gloss finish and our house for a short time looked like an indoor pool.”
I love change and am in a constant state of play with our home, it’s where I feel safest to experiment.
“My favourite spot in the house is our bed. Our bed is very sentimental, it is another thing I designed and Lucas hand-crafted (he carved our family gang sign, a soft, pillowy-looking tooth, into the top of each bed post). It is a tomato-red four poster made from solid hardwood that I dressed in calico curtains with added leopard print trim. We close the curtains at night and it’s the cosiest little nook like a cubby house when you were a kid! We have a projector on the ceiling so some nights we point it toward a sheet at the end of the bed and watch a movie from inside. In the morning it acts as our bedroom and prevents the light from waking us up. You don’t have to get out of bed to draw open the curtains so it makes waking up in your own time much easier. The end of the bed frames the larger wall of our house where I like to change the art regularly and oftentimes I might use the wall as a sort of mood board for whatever I am working on. Lucas gets up and takes Raphi to the coffee shop every morning where he writes and I spend the first hour of my day having a dandy tea pondering my-mood-wall.”
Paloma & Lucas' 'cubby house nook' of a bed is made with our 100% European linen in Lilac
“For a time, before I moved to Katoomba, I was commuting to and from Sydney a lot for work and when I could, get the train. I would often feel drawn to photograph the purple vinyl seats with whatever objects I had in my bags and it worried me that if I spent too much time here I might end up liking purple. I’ve been living here for three years now and purple is slowly but surely showing up in a lot of my design choices at the moment.. the right kind of purple of course!”
“The lilac sheets from IN BED marry perfectly in contrast with the fiery glow of our bed (a custom colour I mixed myself), the warm Porters Apple Cider walls and my bedside table, which is an old chair painted in a warm muted green called Meadow by Dulux. The colour combo is reminiscent of one of my all-time favourite rooms designed by Gert Voorjans with whom I share a maximalist approach to interior design. I read somewhere recently that maximalists are minimalists at heart because they have to have an established base colour scheme to make sure everything works together. I also find it impossible not to incorporate a little red into every room so the oxblood towels were a given for my moody bathroom in Porters Caesar. I will often only use porters paints for walls unless I am looking to mix a very particular colour, the complexity and depth is so much more interesting.”
“I have a tiny chair collection that was heavily inspired by my mum's tiny chair collection - which have both doubled since we discovered a woman in Blackheath that exclusively sells tiny stuff. I love the vintage fabric trim on the end of our bed that my friend Marissa gifted us from her trip to Paris. It has turned the end of our bed into a stage that faces out toward the lounges like a theatre audience. We also love our fish tank which we like to drop different sculptures into, at the moment we are exhibiting the wet cellists. I bought a huge model of the lighthouse of Alexandria at auction when I was heavily pregnant with Raphi and drove down to Sydney to pick it up a few days before he was born so I had something to give him on his arrival. We also made Raphi a huge timber mobile for above his change table so that’s pretty cute because mum and dad made it together.
“Oooh and my nan gave me her giant conch shell planter when I was in my early twenties, everyone who comes over has to touch it to be sure it isn’t real, that’s spesh because she is no longer earth-side. I also love this original oil painting I found at an op-shop of a business man walking down some steps alongside an escalator (I think it might be the escalator at opera bar... lots of speculation among our friends). My all-time favourite piece though is no doubt a huge painting by the Sydney artist Kyra Henley, which depicts a woman (who Lukie insists is Margaret Thatcher) chopping meat, watched longingly by a hungry dog. It's a stunning big painting in her distinctive, 70s advertisement-esque style. The first time I saw it was at a friend's gallery opening years ago at NASHA and I wanted to purchase it but it had already been sold. Fast track a year later, visiting my future husband's apartment for the first time, I walked in to find he had been the person who had purchased it. Green flag!”
Our Lilac organic cotton bath sheets accompany the family's dreamy outdoor bath
“I was once told by someone who I greatly admire and who undoubtedly has impeccable taste that I treat the domestic space as a stage for a very artful way of living and that I have a unique ability to decontextualise pieces in the process. I love a home to feel like a home - lived in, layered, and deeply personal.
I love a home to feel like a home - lived in, layered, and deeply personal.
“I think my style is pretty daring, I’m not sure if it’s because I studied fine art but I get a little fatigued at how afraid people can be when you suggest colour in interiors. I’ve come to realise that any colour works in a space it’s just about finding the right tone. The colour scheme in my home at the moment is actually based on a mood board I created that was inspired by my son’s toys. When I see Woody from Toy Story hanging off the edge of the couch or a pile of his wooden building blocks all over the carpet I want to take a photo of how beautifully they work with the space. These are the sorts of concepts I prefer to work with, ones that are human-centric. I prefer my spaces to feel comfortable and timeless, fresh and with a touch of the ephemeral - so I suppose this is how I would best describe my style.”
“Growing up I spent my childhood moving my room around and drawing up floor plans, my Mum and Aunt worked at Vogue so I would spend a lot of time at their office, in the studios and my face stuck in interiors magazines.”
Growing up I spent my childhood moving my room around and drawing up floor plans.
“I later studied Interior design and got a bachelor of fine arts whilst working at a florist, at IN BED’s Paddington flagship store and assisting stylists on mag shoots. I later started working for an interior design firm where I was the in-house senior residential stylist and I worked on multiple high-end residential and commercial projects. After giving birth to my son I’ve returned to freelance styling so I can be my own boss because I have so many ideas I am just busting to share!”
“[My favourite project to date] was a beach house consisting of six levels in Palm Beach - sourcing finishes, fabrics, furniture, objects and antiques. I love finding things at auction and I particularly enjoyed sourcing antique textiles for this project. The custom lounges were upholstered in some of the most beautiful quality fabrics you can get in Australia. Another project I had a lot of fun working on was a young couple's first house in Bondi. This project involved a lot of really colourful and patterned custom designed pieces using vintage fabrics that we had patch-worked, an unforgettable custom lounge upholstered in the GP and J Baker fabric hydrangea bird as well as a plunge pool that looked like it was straight out of a Polly Pocket.”
The couple's tomato-red for poster bed is draped with our Lilac bedding
“When Lucas and I first met he was a mushroom farmer and was growing gourmet mushrooms in the mountains. We spent the majority of our time up here during lockdown and found it both nicer and cheaper. The bush, fresh water swimming holes, clean air, no traffic, and of course the vintage and op shops were all alluring. Our families and the cute new friends we have made have helped us to decide we won’t be leaving any time soon.”
The bush, fresh water swimming holes, clean air, no traffic, and of course the vintage and op shops were all alluring.
“I definitely haunt the local op shops and vintage stores here. Saint Joan is a little vintage clothing store in Katoomba slightly hidden back from the main strip on Lurline street; the eponymous Joan made the matching striped set I’m wearing from vintage tablecloths.. she also frequents Sydney markets and is an absolute cutie! Our dog Ru is a local celebrity at Cassiopeia coffee shop but we also love Fidelity Coffee and Black Cockatoo pastries. The elephant bean makes the best chicken sandwich though!
“The cultural centre has some great exhibitions. My favourite op-shop is the North Katoomba Oppy but the Children's Cancer Foundation Op Shop in Leura is good too and has recently expanded into a larger warehouse space. Oh and the best bánh mí outside of Vietnam is in Wentworth falls at The Laughing Elephant! However, we get our pho regularly from Pho Moi in Katoomba, our favourite Thai joint is The House of Thai in Leura, and of course Sushi & Co. if we feel like Japanese. Butter cafe in Wentworth falls is yum too as I frequent the lake there for Mums club. More importantly though there is a cracker of a vintage store further down the mountain in Springwood that is called The Pony & The Gypsy which I frequent on every car trip to and from the big smoke. In the warmer months we spend a lot of time at our swimming spot which is however our one closely guarded secret."
Hanging in the idyllic space; our 100% Linen sleepwear set & Lake blue sheet
