Real Living Australia - February 2018

MIN

IMA

LIST

THE VERY CONCEPT OF MINIMALISM SEEMS TO, rather ironically, bring with it whole

countries – Sweden, Denmark, Japan. Places with aesthetics worth copying and ideas

worth replicating; a notion that’s far easier in theory than in practice. In fact, if you really

want to be a staunch minimalist, you might find you have to up and move. Not to Sweden

necessarily, but definitely outside your comfort zone. It was certainly a shift that worked

for Mike and Inga Campbell who, back in 2011, made a manoeuvre that would change

their lives forever. “We lived in Surry Hills and then Darlinghurst in Sydney, and loved

being in the thick of it,” Mike says. “We also knew we wanted to start a family, so we

figured we should buy a house first... only where we could afford to live and where we

wanted to live in Sydney were two very different places.” A fortuitous trip to Newcastle

on the New South Wales coast saw them stumble across an open house that ended

up being theirs less than a week later. “We left our jobs that we loved [Inga was art

director of Grazia magazine and Mike was the national publicity manager at Universal

Music], and moved up three months later. Just like that.” A

GONE ARE THE DAYS OF COOKIE-CUTTER LIFESTYLES FOR ALL AND

SUNDRY – MODERN LIVING IS ALL ABOUT PLAYING BY YOUR OWN RULES

text

emma markezic |

photography

courtesy of mr and mrs white (mrandmrswhite.net)

*Report from Ikea’s

Life at Home: Beating the Battles 2017 Report #4

MODERN

LIVING

THE WAY WE LIVE

In the first of this new series,

we meet Mike Campbell, 38, host

of the Live Immediately podcast,

and wife Inga, 39, an illustrator

and owner of Inkling Design.

Along with their daughter Andy,

six, the Campbell family has

spent years purging 80 per

cent of their belongings in the

name of a cleaner, simpler life.

Liveimmediately.com/podcast

| Inklingdesign.com.au

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