Lucie Cutting and partner Mark Grassie in their Sandy Bay flat. Pictures: RICHARD JUPE

HOBART broadcaster Lucie Cutting and ICT worker and student Mark Grassi are enjoying their last days in their Sandy Bay flat before they make a family home for themselves in the Huon Valley. Here they reflect on their first home together, and the surprising ideal pet for flats.

The couple have been together two years since Lucie swiped right on dating app Tinder. “I hadn’t been on it very long,” Mark says. “It takes up so much time. Lucie was the last one,” Mark says before Lucie quickly interjects, “I better be!”

“Lucie’s a catch!” Mark says.

Mark is a recently returned Tasmanian. Having spent a decade interstate, where he and his former partner had a daughter, he felt the call to return to Tasmania. So he, his daughter, his former partner and her new partner all agreed to move to Tasmania to keep their family unit close together.

“The logistics of us all moving interstate at once was tricky. We had to put my daughter in school and her mum and her partner and I all needed to get jobs and find places to live. But it’s good to be back,” he says.

The lounge room.

Lucie also came to Hobart via Melbourne.

“I grew up in country Victoria and then lived in Melbourne for years. I was living in Fitzroy and the contract I was working on finished in the same month that my apartment sold. That made me realise I didn’t actually have anything keeping me in Melbourne,” she says. “I was looking around at rentals and thinking that I just didn’t want to pay $200 a week to live in a massive share house so I thought, I’d try something completely different. So I moved to Hobart to study nursing.”

She found herself in Glebe where the rent was cheap and the views stunning. “But nursing wasn’t for me so I quit after seven months. I was umming and ahhing about whether to stay in Tasmania because I wasn’t having a good time,” she says.

The main bedroom.

While working at the Multicultural Council of Tasmania she got a start at the ABC. “I was often doing interviews about racism and cultural appropriation, and one day one of the producers encouraged me to apply for a job. So I did. There were days when I was working from 9am until 10pm because I’d go to work at the ABC after my day job,” she says.

On top of that, Lucie runs the website The Pin, a discussion platform devoted to representing multinational and multicultural people in conversations about race, identity and culture in Australia.

“I started The Pin because I was tired of people asking me where I’m from,” Lucie says. She and co-founder Nkechi Anele met in Melbourne and bonded over the shared experience of feeling like they didn’t belong. “Meeting Nkechi was so great for me,” Lucie says. “She’s part African too. I didn’t know any African people where I grew up in country Victoria. I hated my hair and I was always frustrated by how I looked. There was no one who looked like me on television. I tried straightening my hair a few times but I looked like Tina Turner or a news reporter. And not in a good way. Nkechi changed that.”

Lucie and Mark’s stick insects Charlotte and Alex.

For busy people, their flat is a sanctuary. According to Mark, the style is all Lucie.

Largely intact, this 1960s two-bedroom flat is generously proportioned. There’s room for a dining table and a couch in the lounge room with wall-to-wall glass capturing a view of historic houses across the street. Classic white aluminium venetian blinds moderate the light, and low bookcases sit under the window ledge and contain the clutter — or beauty — of information in hard copy.

The kitchen feels part of the living room by way of a tiled servery, a kitsch reminder of the flat’s vintage. Cool whites, natural timber tones and a healthy dose of indoor plants provide serenity, and a Maton guitar is also in easy reach. “I love this guitar,” Lucie says. “I’ve had it since I was 18. I took it in to work once because we had Dan Sultan on and he needed a guitar. So three staff brought their guitars and of course we all wanted Dan to play our guitars, and he chose to play mine and he signed it, too,” Lucie says.

The servery window from the kitchen to the dining table.

A poster from the time of the Pussy Hat Rallies.

On the windowsill, living discreetly among some gum leaves in a repurposed fish tank, are pet stick insects Charlotte and Alex. “Alex used to be called Whathisname,” Mark explains, “until he nearly died one day. We think he ate some non-eucalyptus foliage, but you’d think he’d know what to eat, right?”

“They can’t fly but they can control fall,” Mark notes, pointing out a characteristic wobble, which makes them appear like sticks blowing in the wind.

The stick insects are Queensland natives. They’re allowed to be kept as pets in Tasmania because they won’t survive in the wild. “Charlotte lays two or three eggs a day and s**** like mad, but it’s only eucalyptus,” Lucie laughs. “They’re fascinating creatures – they shed their shells, and Charlotte’s abdomen is soft like skin – and perfect for flats like ours with no outdoor space.”

Above an imitation fireplace, repurposed as a nook for vinyl and a record player, hangs a poster of three fists clenched in solidarity. “It’s from the time of the Pussy Hat Rallies in 2016. This piece encapsulates me,” Lucie says.