Brush with history
You’ve read how Jess Britten and Warren Durling are living their dream in their 1907 hall — now dive deeper into how they wrote the next chapter of its colourful life.
When did colour come into your planning process, Jess? Right at the beginning. The walls were originally clad with timber, which would have been lovely, but unfortunately it was rotten beyond repair in many places, so we looked at it as an opportunity to expose some of the gorgeous brickwork, which became the foundation of our colour and material palette. From there, it was about finding other colours and textures to complement the brick and help balance the light, which is a bit inconsistent throughout the building. 126 homest yle
How did you harness paint’s textural qualities? I love colour, but I knew I wanted the focus to be on texture and how colour could enhance it; I liked the idea of using texture and paint to enrich the mood and express our personalities. I was also curious to explore how paint products, which are mostly thought of as 2D or flat, can introduce texture and depth, and was blown away by the number of unique products Dulux has on offer, such as the Dulux Design Effects and Dulux Renovation Ranges.
INTERVIE W
PH OTO G R APHY
Alice Lines
Dunc an Innes
This being a heritage-listed building, were there any guidelines you had to work around? Before launching into any work, we did a lot of research on the history of the ‘category A’ building so we were able to approach our renovations with care, and our paint choices were very much a reflection of this. We chose colours that were close to what would have been used originally, and these decisions were supported by Auckland Council and Heritage New Zealand, who we’ve worked closely with throughout.
