I was thrilled to have been approached by my friends Olivia and Adam last year, to help them re-design and decorate their home in the hinterland of Byron Bay. The couple have such innate style, but had lost their way a little after the birth of their two sons and hoped that I'd be able to help them tie together their previous renovation with a new vision for the design and decoration of their home - one that would serve both the functional needs of a young family but also fuel and inspire them. Olivia and Adam are a very creatively minded couple, with many great ideas. My job was to first establish what those ideas were, then to work out how they are living in their home and then how they hoped to be living once the re-design was finished. Then it was a matter of editing down those ideas and adding a few of my own - to create a style and a palette that reflected who they are and how they want to live.
I find that the first thing that needs addressing in any home re-design is storage. Most houses don't have enough, especially old weatherboards such as this one - and without adequate storage, homes tend to become cluttered and downright messy in some cases. Anyone with small children will know that they accumulate many things - if those things don't have a home to return to, then they are left out in the open collecting dust and friends! So, before we could tackle the fun stuff - we needed to build in some storage. This was first and foremost in my mind with the design of the kitchen - a sleek, white functional space. Adam loves cooking and so building in enough bench space was a priority. From there, we built in rows of drawers (not cupboards) as the drawers are easier to organise and keep tidy. Apart from the kitchen, cupboard space was built throughout the whole house, in the form of a TV cabinet (with drawers and always doors) and Max's room was turned into storage heaven with a built in bed housing drawers, cupboards and some open shelving for display purposes all designed by Adam.
Once the storage was sorted, then it was onto the walls (painted Dulux White On White) and the floorboards (stained chocolate floorboards in the living areas and carpet in the bedrooms). The boards in the new 'glasshouse' room (which is a built in deck) were transformed using a light white wash.
Then the fun stuff! Olivia loves sunny yellow and so it was a priority to incorporate yellow into the decoration of the home - and so it, along with my favourite peacock green velvet with splashes of chocolate became the base colours used throughout almost every room. Of course, Florence Broadhurst is the star here - in the fabrics and wallpaper - but I'm also just completely in love with the Kenzo floral too. For this home - it was all about combining a touch of glamour against a simple backdrop to create spaces that were relaxed but still inspiring to live amongst.
I'm so excited that the house has made the cover of this months Inside Out magazine (with a feature inside) - particularly because this issue marks the first for their redesign - which I'm sooo in love with.
And to celebrate I thought it might be fun to do a give away. I've got five copies of this issue of Inside Out to give away. Just leave me a comment (with your name attached) - I'll throw all the names into a hat and pick the winners at the end of August. Good luck everyone.
all pics by the lovely Prue Ruscoe
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