The bold and beautiful

Head up the stairs to the recently refurbished one-bedroom guest suite at this Central Otago property, and you’ll find a light-filled restful space. Turn to your left and do a double take. Yes, that’s a purple kitchen in the corner.

The unusual colour (Resene Wicked) was inspired by a modern painting. Homeowners Tanya and Marc Simmonds had brought the artwork with them from England and found that its tones fitted beautifully with their current surroundings amongst mountains and lakes.

While the purple was their choice, kitchen designer Sian Gillanders enhanced its use by suggesting they back-paint the colour onto glass to form the cabinetry. The result is stunning, with the kitchen looking strikingly luminescent. Unsurprisingly, the kitchen won Best Use of Colour, sponsored by Resene, in the National Kitchen and Bathroom Awards 2010.

Such a bold colour needs to have fairly simple surroundings, so the rest of the room was kept very neutral. Along with a pale Victorian Ash timber floor and steeply pitched tongue-and-groove ceiling, the room looks quite Scandinavian in style, which is apt, considering the property’s position part-way between Wanaka and Glendhu Bay in one of our best-known ski areas.

The guest suite is in the loft above the free-standing garage and gym, hence the pitched ceilings. The space available for the kitchen pretty much determined the layout, with the sink bench placed in front of the triangular dormer window, and the cook-top on the short return at the end.

Because of the ceiling pitch, there was no room for over-head cupboards or tall items, so everything, including the refrigerator, had to go under the bench. In an effort to keep the look quite simple, the glass triangular splashback at the end of the kitchen was also treated to a Resene Wicked paint job, but when it came to choosing a rangehood, both Tanya and Sian thought all of the options made the space look too cluttered. The solution was to use a downdraft system instead, with a simple extraction grill in the wall above the cooktop.

Using an acrylic benchtop, Hi-Macs in colour Vesuvio, gave Sian the ability to manipulate it up the tricky angled wall into an upstand. She also made the benchtop extra deep to allow for the lack of height along its back edge.

The grill effect in the toe kick is actually cut-out vents for the loft’s heat transfer system – another clever way to keep the loft as cleanlined as possible.

Did you know...  That Resene colours will only be true if tinted into Resene products, such as Resene Imperite for painting glass and Resene ArmourCat for painting cabinetry so make sure you insist the supplier uses Resene products if you want your Resene colour to look right.

Accessories:  Dishwasher: Fisher & Paykel dishdrawer, Benchtop: Hi-Macs solid acrylic in colour Vesuvio, Tap: Fonte Evo high-spout, Extraction system: Parmco, Flooring: Victorian Ash by Hydrawood Plus, Designer: Sian Gillanders, SG Design. Get the look with cabinets back-painted onto glass with Resene Wicked.

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Printed copies of habitat highlights are available from late March 2024 at Resene ColorShops and resellers, while stocks last. You can view back issues of habitat magazine online.

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