Musings on Colour – A Personal Perspective

Anyone who knows me will have heard me complain about white, or even worse!, beige walls. This is not a new thing. Even before I became an interior designer, colour in my home environment was a very important thing. In a long ago rented apartment, I painted the cabinet doors and drawer faces of my white kitchen a lovely robin’s egg blue. A lot of work for an apartment I lived in for less than 2 years, but it made me smile every time I walked into that room.

If you are reading this, then you already know that I am from San Francisco, living in Auckland, coming on three years now. It’s a transition, some good, some more difficult. I deal with it. But I did not expect is to be so confused about colour! It was something I didn’t think about at all until last year when we bought our house. A big house, two floors, lots of wall space. Painting would not begin right away, I had some time. But that time is drawing near. As I work out all the details (just in my head, soon to go on paper), I have been thinking about what colours we will paint the walls. And here I am not only stumped, but very upset about being stumped!

For me, colour has always been instinctual, whether in the clothes I wear, the choice of toe nail polish, or paint for the walls of my home. Especially those wall colours. I have always known, in every instance, what colours I wanted and where. The exact shades were down to sorting through paint chips and trying the choices out in different light. But I have always had a good sense going in whether this wall would be a red, while that one a yellow, and this one a green and so on. But since moving into this house, I have had no sense at all, and that has been weighing on me. Keeping me awake at night. Really. And that indecision has had me wondering – why don’t I know, the way I always just know?

In the article about Home Magazine’s 2011 Home of the Year, the writer says, “Views are the blessing and the curse of many New Zealand homes. Our remarkable landscapes command attention, but many of our homes cower mute and inexpressive in response”. How very true, and this is the realisation I had finally come to. The writer is referring to architecture, but it applies as well to interiors. We have so much of the outside inside, with our fully detached homes and big windows on all sides, that the outside always has to be considered. Wall colours, even window coverings, are frames for views that are like huge paintings on our walls.

In the Northern Hemisphere, even in sunny California, most of the homes are all about the indoors. There is just too much world out there that we want to get away from. All but the very rich have views of concrete sidewalks chock-a-block with parked cars, and ugly rooftops. We are packed in on small sections, in cities like San Francisco, houses are up against each other, so that windows are only front and back, not on the sides, and an occasional skylight if one is lucky.

But here, it’s also about the light, which is so very different, that harsh, bright southern light that intensifies every colour. Subtle warm shades just won’t do for framing those bright green trees and intense blue sky. In New Zealand, especially North Island, and especially Auckland, with our water views all around, and green, green, green spaces, it will be about how I can create a unique interior that lives in harmony with the exterior. Stayed tuned for the results. Who knew that even paint colours would be such a journey?