A once neutral-toned Lower Hutt home has been given an injection of colour and personality through the use of bold paint and wallpaper choices and clever, cohesive styling
First impressions can be deceiving. From the outside, this 1930s former state house looks like many others in the surrounding Lower Hutt streets. But pass through the mint green front door and it’s an explosion of colour. Surprisingly, it was even more colourful when owners Zoe Bartlett and Brad Hale bought it in 2006. “There was daffodil carpet, lime green walls, a pink bathroom and a red Formica kitchen benchtop,” laughs Zoe. But the couple – now parents to Josh, 5, and Lachlan, 1 – could see the potential.
Initially they painted the interior “beige, beige and more beige”, thinking they’d sell their first home once they could afford to. But after a few years, they realised they wanted to stay, so in 2010 they extended out the back, adding an open-plan kitchen and dining area, relocating the master bedroom to the old kitchen, converting the laundry into an ensuite and enlarging the main bathroom. The kitchen was themed around the bright yellow kettle, toaster and freestanding Belling oven. Zoe, who’s studying interior design, painted the wall that runs along the eastern side of the kitchen and dining area in Resene ‘Ebony Clay’ to contrast with the yellow. A feature wall in the adjacent dining room was covered in a geometric Resene wallpaper which pays homage to the home’s era.
Zoe’s love of colour is also evident in the three bedrooms. In Josh’s room, she spent two weekends painting a feature wall in bold navy and white stripes using Resene ‘Jaguar’ and ‘Merino’. It was stripes again in the master bedroom, but this time using a wallpaper from Resene’s Elegance II range. Zoe kept things subtle on the exterior with Resene ‘Stack’ but livened it up with a bright green garage door in Resene ‘Limerick’, finding a great use for the leftover paint by decorating old photo frames.
Words by: Sharon Stephenson. Photos by: Paul McCredie.
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The manufacturers of the bright yellow Belling oven perfectly matched the colour to Zoe’s yellow kettle and toaster.
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Zoe Bartlett.
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Dark walls can work by adding drama and allowing accent colours to pop.
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Zoe painted a feature circle in Resene ‘Aqua’ in the office nook to add fun, colour and inspiration to her creative space.
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The striking geometric wallpaper is a popular talking point for first-time visitors. The yellow accents Zoe has used here mirror those in the kitchen, which shares the same open-plan space.
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The striped wallpaper in the master bedroom is intended to be hung vertically, but using it horizontally has created an illusion of width and greater space.
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Zoe painted the stripes in Josh’s room using masking tape. Resene ‘Dusted Blue’ proved the perfect colour for the feature shapes painted by Zoe.
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The zingy green garage door throws light on an otherwise ordinary space and provides a strong contrast to the exterior shade of Resene ‘Stack’.
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