“I believe in plenty of optimism and white paint” wrote American decorator Elsie de Wolfe in the 1920’s. Wendy Paterson feels much the same, her pristine white-washed Sydney home alight with the joy and optimism of an inveterate collector and decorator – and lots of white paint. “I love the idea of ‘visual silence’, of luxurious austerity and restraint,” says Paterson. “The need for simplicity is tempered by my love of decoration – it’s a constant tug-of-war.”

It’s an intensely personal, private space, certainly not for everyone. The unadorned rooms of the inner-city circa 1860 sandstone terrace house offer an uninterrupted gallery for constantly changing, playful vignettes garnered from a lifetime of collecting – a nest of tiny spotted bird’s eggs, a fist of silver thimbles or a freshly laundered stack of monogrammed linen napkins smelling faintly of lavender juxtaposed with hand-coloured botanical etchings lying on an old Swedish daybed. A posse of scrabble letters on a metal table may appear random, it is not. Paterson is creating an interior conversation, speaking objectively through the many delightful small things she finds. Here is the honed eye of a true collector, the visual and the verbal, as she reinvents phrases to describe what she calls the “poetry of everyday life”. As a former teacher and decorative arts journalist, Paterson’s love of writing has helped define her attitudes and thoughts. “None of our thoughts are unique – someone’s always said it better!” she quips, flipping through a well-thumbed notebook of clippings and bon mots from philosophers and fashonistas, poets and musicians. It might be from the sharp-eyed Chanel, from Leonard Cohen or Khalil Gibram, or the veteran fashion photographer, Bill Cunningham: “He who seeks beauty will find it.”