Sunday Life Events

Welcome to Sunday Life Events, where we provide experiences of design and delight beyond the pages across New South Wales and Victoria. Sunday Life Events is a response to an increased market call for events by our engaged readership. Check out our most recent event, Sunday Life Open House presented by Adairs.

Sunday Life Open House presented by Adairs

We invited you into ‘Kingston’ - a six-bedroom breezy coastal home in Mornington, Victoria by Cahill Building Group. Adairs sent in their talented team of creative designers and stylists to give the home their own branded touch and columnist, writer and interior stylist, Heather Nette King, hosted our tour, taking guests through the home and the design choices of each room. Guests had the opportunity to speak with Heather about products and décor showcased in the magnificent double-storey home enabling them to get real-time decorating advice.

Following the home tour, everyone was treated to a gourmet brunch by acclaimed chef, Simon Tarlington. Simon’s CV includes some of Mornington Peninsula’s best restaurants including Paringa Estate and Doot Doot Doot. Across three elegantly styled long tables, Simon prepared a shared delicious feast for guests, vintage garden party style. Local Mornington Peninsula wine was poured courtesy of Spritz-ecco and Range Life Wines, including a Yuzo Spritz and a Davidson Plum Spritz.

Missed out on tickets? We’ve got you covered - check out Heather Nette King’s top 5 products from Adairs’ new Spring Summer Collection

Rye Outdoor Lounge Set in Holiday Off White Stripe (available from 11 September)
This set is chic and lightweight so it’s perfect for apartment balconies as well as backyards.

Maeve Bench Seat in Woodrose
I am in the market for an upholstered bench to pop at the end of my bed and I love its slinky curves.

Tulsa Vanilla Corduroy Modular Lounge Chair
The chunky corduroy gives it such a great 70s vibe.

Stockholm Cashmere Blue Chair
They’re deep and so comfortable, and I love that the slip-covers are interchangeable.

La Sirena Servingware

It’s super cute and playful and in the perfect colours for summer 24/25.

Click here to shop Adairs’ new Spring Summer Collection.

Want to learn more about the behind-the-scenes of how we choose our homes? We spoke with Jo Johnson, Director of PHOTOLOCO. Jo has been building this business for over a decade, with a passion for architecture and photography.

What is PHOTOLOCO? PHOTOLOCO is a locations agency that find residential or commercial locations for various purposes, such as photoshoots, television, film and events. We work with property owners to showcase their locations to clients/brands. A good analogy for PHOTOLOCO is, we are like a talent agency, but instead of finding talent for our client’s next photoshoot we find homes. It is important to know that the homeowners are paid a fee for the use of their home and insurance is a mandatory requirement of the client to have in place before entering the home.

Kingston is such a beautiful home, what goes into the process of finding your next venue? Kingston is a beautiful home and met this brief perfectly. Not all the homes we scout are architectural homes with incredible finishes. It depends on the brief. We also need homes of different styles, sizes. Sometimes relatable, sometimes Spanish, Hamptons or traditional and sometimes homes with a hills hoist or with a quintessential aussie back garden. It just comes down to what the client is looking for.
To be honest, we mostly find homes through word of mouth. A homeowner who has had a good experience and referred us to a friend who is interested or even would just benefit from an additional source of revenue.

What architectural style do you see people gravitating towards at the moment? Styles of homes that are popular with clients currently are a real mix. It really comes down to the brief and the message a client is putting to market. A few key trends are:

Neutrals - different textures, neutral colour palettes, natural lighting, curves, a mixture of natural materials.
2 in 1 - homes that have an original frontage with a modern extension. Clients love these homes to create two different looks/scenarios in the one location.
Family/relatable homes - lived in, colour, light, big or small, it doesn’t matter. These homes are a backdrop to recreate a family environment.
Modern Minimalism - Clean lines, open spaces, hi end finishes, modern appliances, neutral colours.
Hamptons style home - Homes inspired by Long Island, New York and the Hamptons with coastal influences.
Mid-Century/modern - homes that were designed and build in the mid-20th century.
Eco-friendly architecture - natural materials, energy efficient with minimal environmental impact.

Click here to learn more about PHOTOLOCO.

We spoke with Tom Cahill, owner of the beautiful Kingston House and part owner of Cahill Building Group with his two brothers Jonathon and Steven.

Sunday Life Events: There’s quite a difference between Barrington and Kingston. What was the thought process and inspiration behind Barrington?

Tom: “We engaged Kate Walker Design pretty early on, and we were all in agreeance that we wanted two individual homes that complemented each other. So not completely different but also not stark contrasts, but also just definitely not the same. We prefer this traditional style that stands the age of time...this style just organically grew, and it ended up being British Coastal Lake House, which is what Kate called it.”

Sunday Life Events: When you walk in and the first thing you see is the Pool Room, that feels like a statement of what this supposed to be.

Tom: “Yeah, and it has a bit, I don’t know if you noticed in that room, with the old maps of London in there, we’ve doubled down on that British feel. You know you don’t really get those dark rooms any more, even the fish in the wallpapers, the corals and shells.”

Sunday Life Events: I feel like this (points to Kitchen Larder) is also very British.

Tom: “It is! Yeah, the Larder. It’s not the pantry in this house, it’s the larder. It’s the little things. We worked in conjunction with Kate to have a different outlook on what it could be, and you know she brought that to the table a lot, just bringing all those aspects of it [the house], something that you don’t get every day. You just can’t get a lot of that in Australia, to be honest.”

Sunday Life Events: And is it the three brothers that make up the Cahill Building Group?

Tom: “Yep, so we started together, about 13 years ago. My brother was a carpenter, he went out on his own. I was still an apprentice carpenter at that stage and my brother did Construction Management at Uni, and we just kind of came together and started doing our own thing. Started with little decks, pergolas like everyone does. Extensions, then into our first development with our Dad, about 12 years ago and it just grew from there. We started buying our own properties, developing those, and doing client jobs. It just grew and grew. We started doing a large amount of townhouses and got a good name for ourselves doing high-end townhouses and now we’ve moved into the high-end home market.”

Sunday Life Events: And so it’s not just your brothers that are in the business, you’ve also got extended family?

Tom: “Yeah so there’s me, my two brothers, our dad who retired, who’s in a completely different industry, but he helps us out a lot running errands and stuff which is great. And we’ve got my sister’s husband, so our brother-in-law, who’s worked with us close to 10 years as well. Yeah, it’s definitely a big family kind of vibe, the whole business. Everything’s together. Family dinners end up being about work half the time which is a little bit of a problem haha.”

Sunday Life Events: I feel like you guys are now the designers of Mornington and this area, was that intentional?

Tom: “That’s nice! It doesn’t feel like that, we haven’t necessarily set out to do that. I feel like we have just naturally found our own little pocket, and that’s with collaboration with everyone we work with and just with our own stuff. For the first 11 years, we never used a designer. We did all of our own designs, all of our own specs, which I think set us up well to know all the products, what works and what doesn’t. And we don’t get all of them right, but you learn from your mistakes, and from that growing and building on every single project we’ve done, we’ve created this brand, that really seems to work pretty well, and we seem to have a lot of success in the brand with people liking what we’re doing.”

Sunday Life Events: These are two ultra-quick questions, the best things about working with your brothers?

Tom: “Ha! I could give you the things that aren’t good about working with your brothers.”

Sunday Life Events: Haha yes, that was the follow-up question. The worst things.

Tom: “Nah, it is good. You get to talk to them every day, which can be a good thing and a bad thing. There are positives and negatives with everything. I mean if you ask most people, family businesses generally don’t do that well, which I think is a testament to our relationship. We had to kind of set lines pretty early on, boundaries of this is your role, this is my role and try not to cross them too much. But we’ve nailed that pretty well. But we all get along really well still. There’s still family dinners, Christmas dinners with no issues. But it’s interesting.”

Sunday Life Events: Amazing, thank you so much!

Enjoy Simon’s infamous Wattle, olive & potato bread with honey truffle butter recipe. Check out the recipe below (serves 6).

INGREDIENTS

500g flour / 600ml water / 2 large Dutch cream potatoes / 5g sea salt / 5g white sugar / 5g dry yeast / 80g pitted Kalamata olives / 12g roasted wattle seed / Semolina to dust cake tin / 120ml olive oil / 100g salted butter at room temperature / 10g fresh or frozen truffles / 20g honey / Loaf pan 24cm x 13cm x 6.5cm

METHOD

1. Preheat oven to 220 degrees celsius, full fan
2. Peel potatoes, cut into quarters and add to a pot with water, boil until fully cooked
3. Once potatoes are fully cooked, blend with the cooking water and leave to cool to room temperature
4. Once the potato mix is cooled to room temperature add wattle seed, sugar and yeast
5. In a separate bowl mix flour and salt, then combine potato mix gradually until well mixed with no lumps
6. Chop olives to a tapenade and add to dough
7. Lightly grease loaf pan with olive oil and dust with semolina, pour remaining olive into cake tin
8. Add dough to loaf pan and leave to prove until it doubles in size
9. Once proven, bake in the oven for 10-minutes, then turn the oven turn down to 190 degrees celsius and bake for a further 15-minutes
10. Once baked, remove bread from the oven and leave in pan for 5-minutes, then turn out onto a cake rack
11. For honey truffle butter, bring honey to boil in a small saucepan - remove from heat just as it starts to caramelise, then leave to cool slightly
12. Grate truffle into the cooled honey
13. Add butter to stand mixer with a paddle and mix on full speed
14. Gradually add honey and truffle mix to the butter while mixing, and keep mixing until well combined
15. Remove from the mixer and roll in baking paper, leave to set in fridge - butter is best made a day before and will keep wrapped in fridge for up to two weeks
16. To serve, remove butter from the fridge until it’s back to room temperature, then lather on to thick sliced bread (around 2cm in size)

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