enjoy it now

This Cronulla home was designed in the 1960s by Payne & Hunt Architects and was in original condition, with lovely face brick and perhaps a little too much Mission Brown painted timber. Amber Road took a fearless approach, relocating the kitchen to the ground floor and extending the downstairs living area into the beautiful established garden. A bold crazy pave floor connects inside and outside living spaces.

Amber Road brings a great deal of textural richness to their projects through layered materials, interesting tiles and eclectic furniture. Lymesmith responded by picking up on certain cues in the original home, and in the refurbishment by developing a colour palette that incorporated the original face brick walls, convincing both the client and interior designer not to paint over them, but to use colour on all the non-brick surfaces instead. The exception to this is a mural painting on the brick wall behind the fireplace.

A suite of ‘quiet’ colours creates a base palette in harmony with the face brick tones using Resene Quarter Tea (muted beige), Resene Triple Tea (complex neutral), Resene All Black (deep black) for trims and joinery, and a Resene custom made mushroom pink.

A second colour set plays a more active role, especially in the downstairs kitchen and living area, with Resene Buddha Gold (dry gold), Resene Countdown (brick red), Resene Mustang (brown red oxide) and Resene Prussian Blue (deep blue) as dynamic elements that vibrate and delight the eye. The placement of each colour evolved as the project developed, and various colours emerged in response to vintage furniture, or artwork selections, and vice versa. The client enthusiastically embraced and encouraged the colour play, and had an active role in the project. Resene Unwind was introduced into the bedroom and as a soft ceiling feature in the study loft.

Lymesmith was commissioned to make two wall paintings for the house, and both use the interior colour palette. The murals are abstract pieces developed from aerial photographs of the home's location.

Resene SpaceCote Flat was used for walls and ceilings because of its toughness and for its matte finish that does not compete with other finishes. This was teamed with Resene Lustacryl semi-gloss waterborne enamel for the timber and joinery.

It was a delightful job because the client was so open and willing to try things out, the design process felt adventurous and fun, nothing was seen as too precious or too serious, and nobody cared about ‘resale values’. The driving concept was to make a house that reflected the clients’ commitment to living life their own way and enjoying it now.

It would be easy to revert the house to a neutral colour scheme at a later date, in the meantime, the house reflects and celebrates the individuality of its owners.

Moving through the house really is a pleasure; one experiences colours in new relationships to each other, in relation to the garden, and in a myriad of unexpected ways.

One of the clients became seriously ill during the renovation, and work stopped for almost three years. Returning to complete the project provided a chance to revisit the colour scheme and make some final adjustments. It was a great opportunity to look at the previous work with fresh eyes, which led to a bolder end result.

This Polychrome House project won the Resene Total Colour Residential Colour Maestro Award. The judges said “adventurous and fun, this home deliberately plays with colour to celebrate the owners' individuality. Dual colour palettes are interwoven and respond to artwork, furniture and each other in unexpected ways. Colour rules were made to be broken. This home wholeheartedly embraces a fearless love of colour.”

Colour selection: Lymesmith
Interior designer: Amber Road
Painting contractor: Perfect Touch Painters
Client: Harry Kapoulas
Photographer: Prue Ruscoe
Winner: Resene Total Colour Residential Colour Maestro Award
Project: Resene Total Colour Awards 2018
From the Resene News – issue 4/2018