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Illustration Lighting Interior Design Graphic Design Styling Textiles Furniture Jewellery Photography Craft Floristry Architecture Industrial Design Woodwork Quoted Art Aboriginal Art Ceramics

Lunch Dinner Snacks Salad Vegetarian Breakfast Sweets Gluten Free Drinks Julia Busuttil Nishimura

Fashion Kids Art Ceramics Furniture Gifts Lighting Plants + Flowers Rugs Soft Furnishings In Print Sustainable Design Homewares

Guides Stays

Homes

Australian houses, from architectural masterpieces to suburban family homes, Victorian terraces, mid-century marvels, coastal shacks, city apartments, and everything in between.

Architecture

Award-winning Australian architecture, inspiring homes, and interviews with Australia’s top architects.

Interiors

Award-winning Australian interior design, inspiring homes, and interviews with Australia’s top designers.

Gardens

In depth features on Australia’s most beautiful gardens and landscape design.

Creative People

Studio visits with Australia’s most talented creatives, from artists to architects, ceramicists to stylists, furniture makers to lighting designers.

Art

Studio visits with Australia’s top artists, and unmissable art exhibitions in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and beyond.

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Weekly recipes and meal ideas from our favourite cooks, authors and foodies.

Travel

Unique travel destinations, design-led accomodation and day trip ideas in Australia and New Zealand.

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A Cottagecore Folly Buried At The Bottom Of A Grand Garden

Creative People

In architectural terms, the definition of a ‘folly’ is a decorative or ornamental structure that is largely non-functional.

But Cameron Kimber‘s folly is much more than a mere ‘ornament’. The interior designer’s quaint sheltered room at the bottom of his garden in the NSW Southern Highlands is packed with personality and put to good use!

17th June, 2022

The folly is located at the bottom of the garden surrounded by hedges and lawn. Photo – Chloe Paul.

It’s just three square metres in floor space, and made from the same painted weatherboard as the main house. Photo – Chloe Paul.

The guest cottage sits in another corner of the property, but matches the folly and main house in exterior material expression. Photo – Chloe Paul.

Gravel skirts the bottom of the tall hedges, lending privacy to the guest cottage courtyard. Photo – Chloe Paul.

The external wall garden of the guest cottage. Photo – Chloe Paul.

Interior designer Cameron Kimber in front of his collection of porcelain, displayed neatly here on shelving made from a repurposed bookshelf! Photo – Chloe Paul.

Vintage Georgian windows and wallpaper and fabrics from Colefax and Fowler complete the English country house aesthetic. Photo – Chloe Paul.

The view over the garden from the guest cottage. Photo – Chloe Paul.

Vintage furniture and artworks decorate the wall space in the folly. Photo – Chloe Paul.

The folly nestled at the bottom of the garden. Photo – Chloe Paul.

Surrounded by clipped hedges, trees and a manicured lawn, we could easily be in Sussex – not the NSW Southern Highlands! Photo – Chloe Paul.

Sasha Gattermayr

Friday 17th June 2022

‘I have filled it with things I love.’ – Cameron Kimber

If you remember anything about Cameron Kimber’s grand home in the Southern Highlands, then you have a good frame of reference for its newest addition… A three square metre room layered with cottagecore splendor!

In-built shelves made from a repurposed bookshelf line the back wall and are adorned with Cameron’s porcelain collection.

‘I wanted the joinery to look like it was built in 1935 by a carpenter,’ says Cameron. He achieved this rustic look by taking the top off an old bookcase, painting it and matching it to vintage Georgian doors and windows.

Wallpaper and fabric from heritage British textile brand Colefax and Fowler complete the English country house aesthetic inspired by European orangeries and grand British interiors.

The garden palette is a simple combination of lawn and hedges. This fringing frames the folly as its own piece of architecture, anchoring the garden design in a built structure separate to the house.

This cosy garden retreat is accompanied by an actual guest cottage with multiple rooms on a different part of the property.

’It’s a great place to read a magazine or enjoy a cup of tea, or a gin and tonic on summer evenings,’ says Cameron. ‘I have filled it with things I love.’

See more of Cameron Kimber’s work here.

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