LOUNGE.

Welcome to our lounge. Previously green walled, dull lit and curtain less, our lounge was a transformation waiting to happen and boy could we visualise it. We wanted to brighten it up, with a warm shade of white, a neutral wall colour, enhance the rimu skirting and add floor length luscious curtains. This was actually such a straight forward room for us and it didn’t take us long at all. All we had to do was paint, curtains, lighting and one minor demo!

Deciding on paint choices were not easy! We had so many test pots, our big tip is try the colour in various lights as it can completely change the look of the colour! The two colours we eventually decided on we absolutely love and are so happy we took the time to choose, it is also important your colours compliment each other. They were…

• Resene Half Nappa for our walls; it is a beautiful neutral which is warm yet still a grey blend.

• Resene Half Ricecake, a sharp clean yellow white. We were determined that we wanted a warm white, yet we wanted to stay away from any cream tinge. We decided to bring the Half Rice Cake down to the picture rail enabling us to elongate the walls and make the room feel larger. 

There are so so many shades when it comes to paint, so our piece of advice to you would be don’t rush! Take your time and do what we did, get some test pots and paint them on. It is also important to take your time and find the right colours to match the theme you are trying to portray, we had a clear idea from the beginning - we wanted this to be a warm and inviting lounge that screamed comfort, so the colour was essential to achieve this. As you can see we chose to keep some of the existing Rimu, it can be hard to find the right amount to keep/remove but you can always paint more away later, it is so much easier than painting it out completely and then regretting it later!

Our lovely green was actually a wallpaper! A wallpaper that was peeling off and full of bubbles. We wanted to bring it back to a smooth perfect condition so prep was important! For this we had to cut out all the bubbles and then plaster skim-coat the entire wall. It was a slow process but in the long run so very worth it!

Black was also a colour that is extremely hard to nail (I swear they all are!!), and we found that there aren’t actually that many blacks out there (who would of thought!). As a feature we wanted to keep the old fireplace and transform it, we did this with a coat of paint and used logs we chopped from a tree in our garden. We visioned a charcoal dark grey not quite black and to be honest thought it would be an easy colour to find! We went for Resene Fuscous Grey and after one coat we found it looked very blue in certain lights. Eventually after numerous test pot trials nothing was working, until Resene’s All Black was the winner! So great in fact we have also decided to match it with the glass panelled entrance door.

To the left of the fire we decided to remove the cupboard, although great storage we elected to go for a symmetrical look with the fire being the central focus point.

One thing I would highly recommend doing as I previously mentioned is floor to ceiling curtains! This truly did alter our lounge significantly, the room feels a lot larger and they look much more luscious. We opted for linen as it is definitely a favourite of ours, I mean you just can’t go wrong! A soft sandy colour fitted in nicely alongside the neutral pallet – just ensure you get a thick backing as linen is known to fade in sunlight.

As the final touch we added new LED lights. Lighting can significantly change a room and is such a quick fix, a warm white bulb was our go to choice rather than the “blue” white light.