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Practical magic

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Having lived in homes that could have done with a spruce up for eight years, Australian Cheri Holle relished the opportunity to redesign from scratch the Discovery Bay apartment she now shares with her husband, Stephan.

'We've always decorated nicely but it's frustrating having to work around skanky fittings,' says Holle. 'It's so nice to have everything the way you want it - nice and clean and practical.'

Holle, who worked as an airline marketing executive for 15 years, admits to an interior design background in her distant past. 'But I'm not really an interior designer,' she says. 'Although I am good at the practical side of things. And I love decorating, it's a lot of fun.'

For Holle, the fun is in the details. A number of thoughtful features have been neatly incorporated into her two-bedroom 1,280 sq ft home. In the master bathroom, soft lighting comes on automatically from under the cabinet when someone enters the room and plenty of storage space has been tucked away behind the bathroom's large mirror while just below the counter, a hairdryer is permanently on hand, with the cord fixed into an outlet at the back of a drawer.

The flat has been double-glazed against external noise - traffic may not be an issue in car-free Discovery Bay but high-spirited children's games outside can be a distraction - and within, all of the fittings have been kept off the floor as a precaution.

'I've heard that there's sometimes a problem with the drains and pipes and if the floor does get flooded, everything would get ruined straight away. This way, you minimise the damage and, also, it looks nice and light having everything off the floor like that,' says Holle, who planned and oversaw every detail of the renovation.

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