All over

The Turner family have completely made over their home, carefully considering the features in each room before selecting the right colour scheme to bring out just the right room personality.

Study / toy room
Their study doubles as their office and the girls' toy room, sited off the dining room behind Resene Tea and Resene Sea Fog walls. A small room, it had been painted entirely in the same cream colour. Despite the amount of natural light it always felt dark and featureless. Frances wanted to transform it into something bright and fun because kids' toys and lives are so colourful.

Initially she was afraid of going with a dark colour because of how small the room might feel once the colour was applied. Testing lots of colours on card and keeping in mind the strong orange tones in the desk and toy chest, a palette of Resene Enigma and Resene Sea Fog were selected.

Now applied, the dark colour hasn't closed the room in - in fact the room has really come to life. The Resene Sea Fog creates a feature of the windows, shelves, skirting boards, architraves and the door, a pleasing contrast to the deeper Resene Enigma. The room is topped off in a ceiling of flat white.

Frances bought plastic boxes to keep the toys tidy and adorned the wall with her daughters' artwork using fancy clothes pegs as hangers and a gift of the girls' names from English friends.

Walls	Windows, doors, shelves and fittings
Resene Enigma	Resene Sea Fog

Guest room
Another room that underwent a transformation was the guest bedroom - small, very boring and all painted in the same cream colour - rather than being cosy and warm as desired.

Frances designed the new look room around four framed Italian paintings received as an engagement present and a striped Alfredo duvet cover.

Given the room's size and situation amongst the other colours in the house, Resene Parchment was painted on the walls, flat white on the ceiling and Resene Sea Fog on the doors, skirting boards, architraves and windows to highlight their character.

A new olive terracotta roman blind was added to the window and the bed covered with lots of pillows, including three new orange pillows and a pair of king-sized linen pillowcases purchased 10 years prior in Florence and dyed dark green.

To match the dark reds in the new blind and picture frames, Frances painted the tissue box and rattan shelf in Resene Cab Sav, finally adding silk flowers sourced from a trade fair in a vase from Briscoes to complete the soft atmosphere.

Walls	Doors, architraves and windows	Shelf and box
Resene Parchment	Resene Sea Fog	Resene Cab Sav

Girls' room
The two young Turner daughters love fairies, wands, dressing up and doing ballet - yet their room was dark, drab and cream instead of playful, bright and feminine.

Frances designed their room around the ballerina Wallies (wallpaper cutouts) that her older daughter had selected. After testing about six different colours She decided on Resene Scandal for all four walls. Instead of a feature wall she added a feature stripe of Resene Half Baked as a backdrop for the ballerinas, then used the remaining Resene Half Baked to repaint the bookshelf and Resene Flint to paint the tissue box.

The doll's house, painted the previous year, in Resene Merino and Resene Lipstick rests on a table decorated using Resene Half Baked and Resene Sea Fog.

To bring all elements together, the sign on the door was finished in Resene Scandal, Resene Half Baked and Resene Flirt and the heart on the wall, Resene Lipstick.

In keeping with the rest of the house the ceiling was painted flat white and Resene Sea Fog was applied on all the doors, windows, frames, skirting boards and architraves. Throughout the house, Resene Sea Fog has been applied to paint these features back in to revive the character of this 1930 California bungalow.

Child's bedroom	Stripe, bookshelf and table	Tissue box
Resene Scandal	Resene Half Baked	Resene Flirt
Doll's house	Doll's house and heart on wall	Doors, architraves and windows
Resene Merino	Resene Lipstick	Resene Sea Fog

Master bedroom
Another cream room, the master bedroom was in for a dramatic change. It was a delicate balancing act as Frances had to achieve a transition from the Resene Enigma and Resene Sea Fog hallway and co-ordinate with furniture and bed linen.

The theme for the house was broadly based around using the colours of the New Zealand sea, sand and paua so Frances wanted a colour that would be in keeping with this.

She tested at least six of the blue-green fashion colours before selecting Resene Retro for its intensity and brightness. Again the ceiling was finished in flat white and trims and joinery in Resene Sea Fog to make a feature of them and for an almost white contrast to Resene Retro.

Extending the look to the curtains, Frances arranged to have new curtains made in related colours. The big purple gerberas of the fabric co-ordinate with a gerbera her daughter is holding in a photo on the wall, while the hot pink gerberas on the nightstand are designed to be a bold and bright contrast.

The room now feels vital and exciting and yet the cool blue-green gives it a relaxing quality at bedtime.

Walls	Doors, architraves and windows
Resene Retro	Resene Sea Fog

Living and dining rooms
Perpendicular to each other, the wall between the living and dining rooms has been almost entirely cut out giving a relative large open area. Bearing in mind that the hallway off these rooms was coated in Resene Enigma and Resene Sea Fog, Frances wanted colour selections that would flow from there and work with existing furnishings, carpet and artwork.

More testpots in hand, Resene Tea became the main colour for the walls in both rooms to provide warmth and intimacy accented by the dark and delicious Resene Cowboy for the fireplace feature wall as a complement to the marine blue walls. Given all the Native American influences in the room even the name Resene Cowboy was a perfect fit.

Frances challenged her conventional thinking and painted another feature wall of Resene Galactica in the same large area, this time on the north-facing wall of the dining room. It ties in with the living room sofas making the two rooms seem like one. As a bonus Resene Galactica has added formability and makes a beautiful backdrop for a favourite New Zealand beach painting.

The continuity colours of flat white on the ceiling and Resene Sea Fog on trims and joinery were repeated, used to great effect to highlight key features like the fireplace wall and the architraves in both rooms.

Walls	Lounge feature wall	Dining room feature wall	Doors, architraves and windows
Resene Tea	Resene Cowboy	Resene Galactica	Resene Sea Fog

Each room has a style of its own, yet with careful consideration of the interplay of room schemes, Frances has cleverly utilised a broad colour palette using Resene Sea Fog as a continuity hue to ensure harmony between spaces.

Thanks to Frances.

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