Just add colour!

From the Resene/Your Home and Garden Colour Home Awards Competition - Jan 2011 finalist

Vanessa Lisowski and Simon van Rossum fell in love with Resene Red Hot and Resene Hyperactive, which they used sparingly, but with great impact, in their Auckland home.

“There is an area outside our son’s room that we turned into our library. We made built-in shelves, adding splashes of red and orange to brighten up the space,” says Vanessa.

Choosing to avoid pastels for the nursery, the couple drew inspiration from the library’s bold colour scheme. In Hendrick’s room they added Resene Blackout to the change table found in a second-hand store and created a mobile in the same colours with dowel and wicker balls from The $2 Shop, “It is a colour scheme that will easily adapt as our little man grows,” says Vanessa.

Nursery bright colour scheme
Left: Hendrick loves the colourful mobile his mother made for him. Right: Colour links the library to Hendrick’s adjoining room.

Nursery bright details
Think outside the square, as Vanessa and Simon have. The red and orange accents turn a shelving unit into an eye-catching feature.

Accent colours

Most colour schemes are improved by the addition of accents, the final touches that can make a room come to life. One of the simplest ways of carrying a theme throughout your home is to use a common colour palette. Choose a selection of accent colours for your entire home and then use different combinations and amounts of those colours in each room. You don’t have to use a lot of each colour to make an impact. The commonality of the colours will link the entire scheme together.