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A love of green
Top BMX rider Sarah Walker has developed a passion for interiors, and the colour green... more |
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Banning beige
Fearless use of colour lifts Lian Bruce’s house way beyond the one-neutral-fits-all philosophy. David Bruce knew shortly after meeting his wife-to-be that life was never going to be any shade of beige. Her bedroom at the time featured wooden floors that she’d painted dark red. A poster on the wall carried the message: “You are different”, and she’d painted footprints across the floor leading halfway up the wall to the poster… more |
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Colour out of confusion
Christchurch has a creative answer to a shaken-up CBD. Coralie Winn is one pivotal power-house – albeit an increasingly tired one – of the post-earthquake Christchurch City phenomenon called Gap Filler. Gap Filler was begun by a few creative souls in the wake of the initial September 2010 earthquake to temporarily ‘activate’ the many blank sites of ex-demolition wasteland that were fast populating the city… more |
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Cosy up
Pull up a chair by the fire, treat yourself to a sleep-in or get down and play with the kids. It’s time to cuddle up at home. Get in touch with your flower power self with this enticing fireside scene. The walls are in Resene True Blue, the mantelpiece is Resene Half Breathless, the side table is Resene El Nino, the lamp base is Resene Zephyr and its shade is made from Bloomsbury House… more |
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Dealing to the damp
It’s unhealthy, hikes up our power bills, ruins soft furnishings and can rot the very structure of our houses. But condensation is all too common in our homes. We all know the catch phrase: a dry home is a healthy home. But many of us wake to windows streaked with water droplets or condensation sitting on bathroom walls. Then there’s the mould growing in the corners of the ceiling, or a damp musty smell in the wardrobes… more |
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DIY kidz – boxed set
Give a plain set of storage cubes a lift with fun flag designs... more |
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Just the ticket
A cool blue retro kitchen is the perfect addition to a bach that started life as a tram. When your outlook is across a narrow patch of grass at the tranquil waters of the Firth of Thames, what better colour to paint your kitchen than a soothing pale blue Resene Comfort Zone? All the better when the slightly retro appeal of that shade suits the bach it sits within – which has been cleverly crafted from an old tram. Blue is also the owner Lynn Plom’s favourite colour… more |
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Match-making
Planning a room scheme can be tricky. There are so many components, from the big-picture items like flooring and wall paint, to details like soft furnishings, furniture, lighting and accessories. If you start with the framework, you can easily fill in the details. Always start with the parts of the room that you are likely to live with the longest. Choose your flooring and soft furnishings first and then the paint colour. There are thousands of paint colours available from Resene so it’s generally easier to find a paint to match your flooring and furnishings… more |
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Moroccan magic
Stencil a rainbow of delicious Resene colour onto a glass table top for a mystical Moroccan look… more |
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Off the shelf
New products, places and ideas for the home... more |
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One of a kind
A house that looks beautiful, feels great and costs little to run – meet our first certified passive home. High-rating insulation, double glazing, air-tight internal wrapping – we all know we need them for healthy, warm housing but still, we lag behind when it comes to incorporating such features. This was a shock to Philip and Carolyn Ivanier when they emigrated from North America where some of these elements are standard. So with two young children… more |
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Prefabs come of age
Prefab homes used to be cheap and plain. But with designer input and improved technologies, these homes are a solution for now and the future. When Georgina Pearce’s bungalow in the Christchurch suburb of Burwood was written off after the Canterbury earthquakes, she didn’t want to move elsewhere in the city. But it would be months before she could even get site consent to build a new home on her own property let alone construct a house using conventional methods… more |
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Romantic inspiration
A magazine photo inspired this romantic bathroom scheme. Many people use magazines as inspiration for their decorating choices but Dorothy and Dennis Addison went one step further, virtually recreating a bathroom they saw in a magazine for their old Taranaki farmhouse. They had already swapped the once small bathroom with the much larger mud room-style laundry before they started looking for ideas on how to redecorate their new bathroom space… more |
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Step by step – make a bin locker
Wheelie bins are a practical fact of life in many of our cities and towns… but they’re not the most attractive of items. Here’s a smart way to keep them out of sight… more |
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The secret garden
The tree-covered Waitakere Ranges in Auckland are the perfect setting for a serene garden. There’s a certain mystique to the Auckland suburb of Titirangi. Its tree-clad slopes, shady dells, native birdlife and magical peeps of the Manukau Harbour make it feel far from the city. But those very elements make it tricky for establishing a garden with its short sunlight hours, poor soil and sticky clay… more |
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Zone of calm
Soft hues provide a calming antidote for an executive couple’s busy city lifestyle. Living a busy life in a busy city has advantages for executive couple Catherine and Jonathan and their teenage daughter Caitlin, but it can also get a bit too much. Their solution has been to create a home that feels like a refuge of soft, calming hues. When the couple bought the one-level 1930s bungalow 12 years ago, it had been renovated… more |
