Unhurried Beauty: Tess Guinery's Philosophy of Home

“My home is less a curated space and more a living and evolving story.”

Forgiving beauty

Motherhood didn't fundamentally change Tess's desire to create a beautiful environment, but it did make her approach more forgiving. "I never packed away the treasures when my children arrived," she shares. "Our home has always been filled with collected pieces, and the girls grew up knowing they belonged among them."

This philosophy extends to how possessions are treated. There's no saving special items for later or creating untouchable displays. Instead, Tess embraces a more generous approach: "Beauty, to me, isn't about preservation but participation—the joy of living fully among the things we love, not saving your favourite things for later, but using even the extravagant in the every day."

As a family that moves often, their belongings create continuity across different spaces. And while mess is inevitable in a home where making, doing, and living happen freely, Tess finds genuine pleasure in the simple ritual of resetting at day's end—a practice she's passing down to her daughters, just as her own mother taught her.

The table

"The table, always the table. It's where everything important happens in our home," Tess says when asked about the object with the most stories to tell. This central gathering place transcends its function as furniture to become the heart of their home life.

In their 1950s beach shack—a place with its own special significance as where her husband proposed years ago, and where they've now returned to raise their children—the kitchen and dining room area embodies their family story. 

"It's where we sit for slow breakfasts, where lessons are learnt, where laughter and tired conversations stretch across the day," Tess reflects. "There's nothing polished about it, but it holds the best of us—our mess, our growth, our making of home. It's where the ordinary gathers into something lasting." This simple, honest space represents not just where they eat, but where they truly live together—making it the most authentic reflection of her relationship with her children.

Soul spaces

One of Tess's most natural design choices has been integrating her daughters' artwork throughout their home. Rather than relegating children's creations to bedrooms or refrigerators, she displays them alongside other meaningful pieces.

"Letting my daughters' artwork live among the rest of the house has been one of the most natural (and unexpected) design choices—just the honest things they make, pinned up or framed without too much fuss," she explains. 

While Tess acknowledges her "strong lean into aesthetics" and appreciation for intentionally beautiful spaces, she recognizes the unique quality that children's art brings: "Children's art adds a kind of soul to a home that nothing else can. Some of the pieces they've made have ended up completing spaces in ways I never could have planned." This integration creates an environment that feels less rigid and more lived-in. As she beautifully puts it, "There's something wonderfully unanchored about children's art—something that relaxes a room, softens the edges."

In Tess’ world, home is not a static display but a dynamic canvas where beauty and daily life paint themselves in tandem. Through her eyes, we see that truly inviting homes aren't those preserved behind metaphorical velvet ropes, but those where memories are actively being made, where spills happen alongside special moments, and where children know they belong among the beauty. Rather than abandoning her aesthetic passions, Tess demonstrates how motherhood has enhanced her home—weaving children's creativity and everyday moments into spaces that feel both designed and deeply lived-in.

Perhaps what's most striking about Tess's philosophy is how it extends beyond aesthetics into a way of being. The same qualities that make her home special—forgiveness, presence, participation, and unhurried appreciation—are precisely what make motherhood meaningful too. As she gathers her daughters around that storied table in their beach shack, resetting spaces at day's end, or framing another precious artwork, she's not just styling a home but cultivating a life—one where beauty isn't something to maintain despite family chaos, but something that flourishes because of it.