A Walk Through Time With Fedde Bonadea

Fedde Bonadea | Cornwall, UK

Fedde Bonadea’s home in Cornwall isn’t perfect. The walls aren’t straight. The floors slope. The doors don’t always close the way they should. But after over twenty years of collecting objects, memories, and meaning — across London, Milan, and beyond — this is where she’s chosen to stay.

Fedde is an ontological coach and collector, she speaks slowly and with care as she describes her space: not as a finished thing, but as a kind of living archive of her adventures. One where antiques live beside tarot cards, and a stained-glass window fragment shares wall space with a framed flower given to her in silence. Her house, she tells me, is not built for performance. It’s a wonky refuge — collected, personal, and quietly magical.

"Most people say it's cozy," she begins, "but it's not your average countryside cozy. It's a timeless kind of cozy. Warm — but not in a typical way."

Her living room is the first room she ever designed with a plan in mind, usually her spaces are filled more instinctively. “That table inspired the rest,” she says, pointing to a black lacquered table with a large white star in the center. “The rust velvet sofa, the shelves, the powdery pink walls... the combination of tones and textures make this room cozy and quiet.”

The objects in her home aren’t chosen to match. They aren’t styled. “I really wanted to create a peaceful environment for myself,” she says. Her collection includes plaster busts, esoteric items, antique frames — objects that hold symbolic and emotional weight. “The busts remind me of Italy — I went to a classical art school. Sculpture was everywhere. Even if you tried to avoid it, you were surrounded by Greek and Roman works.”

“I don’t always think or choose things consciously, I am often drawn by craft that belonged to centuries past. Craft and beauty have changed — there’s a different sense of beauty now.”

She is drawn to things that feel charged — things that hold history, mythology, and wonder. “Anything that is related to myth, legend, folklore... is what my dreams are made of. There are very few things in life that provoke that same sense of wonder.” She pauses. “Life can be very bleak sometimes. When I'm in my home, I want to be surrounded by things that bring me joy. That remind me of joy.”

Among the many things in her home, a few stand out: a red-eyed plaster bust she bought shortly after moving to London — “It’s been with me for almost twenty years” — and a framed flower picked by a woman she met while traveling in Sicily. “She cooked a feast for us, but she didn’t talk much during dinner,” Fedde remembers. “Before I left, she took me to a tree in her garden. She picked a flower, made me smell it, and then tucked it into my hair. She didn’t say anything. It was a small gesture, but charged with such beauty. I kept the flower and framed it. It’s been in my house ever since.”

Fedde wakes early, but she stays in bed for a while. “I wake up around six, but I don’t leave the bed for maybe another hour. I spend time with my cats, check the news or social media, read. It’s slow.”

Her bedroom has a big window, and in the mornings, light floods the room with orange hues. “Sometimes I just wake up and the whole room is filled with the sunrise. After so many years in London, where you can’t even see the sky, it feels like a gift.”

She describes the morning quiet that surrounds her. “I hear birds chirping. The town is still sleepy. Even when it’s busy, I’m on a small road. Not many cars pass by.” On Sundays, she hears the bells from the church down the road. “If I open the window, I’m at the same level as the bells. They practice Thursday nights, too. Sometimes there’s music from the church — choirs, events. I can hear it from my window.”

“I had to decide if I was a hoarder or a collector.”

Decorating, for Fedde, is intuitive. “I think everything I have in the house, I’ve come across accidentally” she says. “The star-table was the first time I made a conscious decision: this is the center, and everything else should work with it. But usually it’s just, ‘You’re coming with me.’”

Knowing when a room is finished is a different question. “A few years ago, I had to decide if I was going to be a hoarder or a collector,” she says, laughing. “I decluttered a lot. Now I only bring things in that really evoke something. I know what color the walls should be, what kind of frame the doors need, but on the emotional side — I don’t think I’ll ever be done. I’ll always come across something that lights something up in me.”

Cornwall has changed her. “The house had to become more practical,” she says. “There’s more mud here. You need rugs, a washer-dryer. Things need to dry quickly. That’s not the part you see, but it matters.” She notes the difference in pace, in light, in mood. “There’s a stronger sense of peace here. Maybe that came into the colors I chose.”

Even though her style hasn’t changed drastically, the function of the space has. “The living room is for winter. It’s warmer. The rest of the house — it gets cold. We’re really exposed to the elements here.” But the landscape has left its mark. “Cornwall is full of Bronze Age sites, medieval castles. You live very close to the past here. There’s a strong memory in the land.”

Near her front door, she has a framed illustration of her house from the 18th century. “It shows the church and my house — before the extension was built. I like that. That we’re still here, living in the same places. That we’re layering our lives over everything that came before.”

When I ask what someone would learn about her from walking into her home, she doesn’t hesitate. “That I’m a weirdo,” she says, smiling. “Living with Ancient Gods on the walls is not for everyone! But I think they’d also see that I care. About beauty, memory, story.”

Her home, as she puts it, is not a polished thing. “There’s not one straight line in the house. It took me the longest time to make peace with that. But I’ve been here for over a year. I’m not moving. This place — it stands.”

And what does home mean to her?

She thinks for a moment. Then, simply: “Refuge. Not safety — refuge.”

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Fedde’s work: likethehare.co.uk
Photography by Fedde Bonadea

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