Trust your instincts

They purchased their 1925 bungalow and while the house was sound it was in desperate need of a spruce up inside.

This room was the worst of all the rooms in the house and during the decorating process of the main living areas, it became a junk room for storage of all the built in furniture that came with the house.

It all started with Shane asking 'when are you going to do that room up so we can bring the pool table inside?' Belinda isn't normally a procrastinator (especially when it comes to decorating), but something was bugging her about the room so she kept putting off doing the room up.

After some thought she decided that the best option would be to move their daughter into this room and re-do her room to become the games room/man cave.

The inspiration came, from all things a Tui Beer can. Belinda promptly went down to Resene to get some testpots eventually deciding on Resene Havoc - a nice vibrant orangey red with an appropriate name to match!

Some friends popped around when she was painting the second coat and anyone who saw the colour could only muster an 'mmmm it's bright ay - do you like it?' Never one to shy away from bright colours she was adamant it would look great. Ever the re-cyclist she used the left over paint from the main colour of the interior of the house Resene Linen to paint above the picture rail, it wasn't the best match, but she was happy with the end result.

Upon completion of the painting, they cleared out the majority of the cabinetry and restored the window frames and sills and an old wardrobe purchased from the local hospital and moved the pool table into its new residence.

Just as Belinda originally thought the room was a little too narrow to accommodate an interference free game of pool; the cues would hit the mantelpiece and the window. For approximately two weeks the room was the games room then Belinda decided to swap the room with Sarah's room.

Enter dilemma #1, a bright red room - in Belinda's opinion - is not suitable for a bedroom and Sarah didn't want to change rooms, her favourite colour has always been pink. So Belinda spent some time going through the Resene fandeck looking at pinks, and while doing this came across a picture in the fandeck of a striped room and thought 'big stripes with pink and red - that could work'.

She found some pinks that worked with Resene Havoc and went to get some more testpots. The testpots she returned with did not work when against the red, yet in the fandeck they looked good. Enter dilemma #2, it was then they discovered that the original colour wasn't in fact Resene Havoc, it had been mistinted using the wrong base. With the help of the ColourShop staff Belinda went through the pinks to try and match up with the paint tin and armed with more testpots she went home to see how these looked.

She eventually decided on Resene Glamour Puss and Resene Rouge and decided to do a 30cm stripe mainly to accommodate the roller sleeve width and alternated the colours leaving the red in between each pink to save on painting time. Once she had completed the stripes I wasn't happy with the Resene Linen above the picture rail - it just didn't work. Dashing to Resene she spotted some grey textured wallpaper which just happened to be on a clearance special so grabbed a couple of colour options and raced home to check then raced back to purchase all that they had left secretly hoping that she didn't make an error as there was no more wallpaper available in that style.

The feature wall was completed that afternoon and with new found vigour, Belinda decided she couldn't wait until the following weekend to finish the room so during that week she would hang a few drops during the week after work.

Belinda upcycled her old pine dresser (originally a dark stain finish), sanding the old stain out of it and then used Resene Colorwood Whitewash. She also cut out Sarah's name from some pine timber to personalise the space for her.

Looking back Belinda realises it was a bit of a mission getting it looking so good, which has reminded her to always listen to her heart/gut instinct and don't be influenced by what other people might think. Everyone thought she was nuts with the colour choices, and now they all love it.

Wall stripes	Wall stripes
Resene Glamour Puss	Resene Rouge

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