My first published piece!

Recently I have been approached by a good friend to write an interior design piece for her online magazine, and I have just written my first one! The website is The Luxe Life a Canadian lifestyle website that focuses on fashion, beauty, culture and living. I am very excited about this new opportunity and hope to continue with it for years to come. Here is the link for it so please take a look and enjoy! 

Small Spaces Deserve Big Decor Ideas - By Katelyn Rempel

 

The Beach Club - Cottesloe, WA

During my time in Australia I lived in Cottesloe WA for a couple of months, located just south of Perth close to Fremantle. Cottesloe has a typical small beach town feel but still is a part of Perth City so you get the best of both worlds. I fell in love with Cott the minute I arrived; the beach is one of the nicest beaches I have ever seen, and the energy was very relaxed and easy going. One of the main places to go out for a sunny afternoon drink is The Beach Club located in the Cottesloe Beach Hotel. In recent years The Beach Club has been completely renovated and revamped by the incredibly talented architecture firm Hecker Guthrie based out of Melbourne, Australia. The space is a cheerful approach to a 1950's beach inspired watering hole, with playful colours found in the tiles and furniture as well as a strong geometric presence in feature walls, fabric, tiles, and flooring.

The entire place is broken up into smaller sections that all have different seating arrangements but the theme is very cohesive throughout the entire space. There is a communal dining area with large tables at bar height, a lounge area that features wood burning fireplaces with comfortable couches and chairs, an open concept yet more intimate section with smaller tables, and a large standing room only bar section. 

The entire space is outdoors giving you that patio feel, although certain areas such as the lounge and intimate dining areas are covered with ceiling panels. It is one of those spaces where the attention to detail amazes you. The designers have not missed a beat and every single nook and cranny has something worth admiring. 

In the summer months The Beach Club hosts a yoga class once a week, as well as an outdoor cinema night on their large projection screen towards the back of the space. Anyone visiting Perth has to stop by The Beach Club for a drink and maybe even some food (the menu is outstanding as well). You can even sneak through the lobby of the hotel to the Veranda Bar to catch the sunset over the Indian Ocean, it's enough to take your breath away. 

Been around the world and back again.

I know, I know… it has been over a YEAR since I last wrote a post, and how guilty I feel. A lot has changed in a year and looking back it is amazing how quickly it has gone by. I changed jobs, changed apartments, but the biggest change of all was all of the traveling I got in. I went to Thailand and back in the early summer months of 2013 while I was in-between my two jobs, and most recently decided I needed a more drastic change in my life and made the move to Australia. Packing a backpack and making a move to the farthest place I could possibly go was both the easiest and hardest decision of my life. I have never lived farther than a 2 hour drive from my friends and family so the initial thought was very daunting.  I asked myself over and over again if this is what I really wanted and if this was the right decision for me at the time, and then finally I just stopped thinking about it and just said yes. I can with out a doubt say it was the best decision I have ever made in my entire life. I completely broke free of everything I knew and everything I was comfortable with to engage in an adventure into the unknown for the foreseeable future.

I lived out of a camper van, I drove a [manual] 4x4 on a sand island, I ate instant noodles for days on end, I lived on a boat and sailed the Whitsunday Islands, My home for two months was an 8 person dorm, I moved to an outback town and worked at the only pub in it. I met so many people that I became instantly best friends with only to say see you soon a short few days later. I fell in love with people and places and opened up to new opportunities that I never once imagined having. Some of these experiences at first were not the most appealing, but were viewed more as a necessity in order to make my travel funds stretch as far as possible. But it was these experiences that ended up being the most memorable; my 8 bed dorm roommates quickly became my family, and my outback barmaid experience turned into a crazy adventure with new close friends.

And as much as I missed my friends and family back home, I never felt incredibly homesick or felt the desire to head home, in fact I wasn't really ready to go home at all. I had built a life there in such a short amount of time that made me truly happy, one that I hope to re-visit some time very soon.

If I can give one piece of advice from my experiences this past year, its to take a chance and do something unknown. Whether its traveling to a new place, taking on a job overseas, changing careers, changing your routine, just do it if it's going to make you happy. As Tina Fey said "say yes, and you will figure out the rest later," your life starts at the end of your comfort zone, and after the truly incredible year I had, I have never heard truer words be spoken.

Live your adventure.