When it came to creating their own home, these interior designers all had one thing in common: colour. Whether it is used to zone spaces, update period details or create a particular mood, these experts harnessed its transformative abilities to create a space that truly reflects their life and work.
The pastel-hued Parisian home
‘My husband and I have a nice collection of art and design, but I really didn’t want my home to feel pretentious, or like a gallery,’ says French designer Sandra Benhamou of the Parisian apartment she shares with her husband and three children. To keep things from feeling austere, she used an uplifting palette – blue, pink and green – which proved to be the perfect foil to the grand proportions and ornate detailing of the Haussmanian apartment.
The Melbourne home zoned with colour
‘We started with the idea of structural authenticity and adaptability, developing an architectural narrative that would be flexible enough to change,’ says designer Amelia Wilde of her home just outside of Melbourne. She added a steel framed extension to the original 1930s structure and used colour to zone between the old and new spaces. The snug is cloaked in a sage green, while the sanctuary-like bedroom is decorated with varying shades of baby pink.
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The jewel box home in Silver Lake
When it came to reimagining her 1940s home in LA, Elspeth Benoit decided to start with a clean slate – quite literally. After painting all the walls white she and her family lived in the property for several years before work begun. ‘During that time we made a mental list of what needed to change,’ she recalls. Colour became the focal point of the project: ‘Each step in the painting process informed what would come next,’ she says. It started with Farrow & Ball’s ‘Black Blue’ which was used to create a cocoon-like space in the dining area, and the same colour is used on door frames to create a visual thread through the home.
The multi-hued home in Copenhagen
A vivid new shade can be found around every corner in the joyful Copenhagen home of interior designer Nadia Olive Schnack. From the uplifting lilac kitchen, to the sunshine yellow living room and baby blue staircase, every surface was seen as an opportunity for chromatic experimentation. ‘This is my way of finding a place,’ she explains. ‘It’s not a protest, it’s just what makes me happy and full as a human being.’
The curated home in London
Interior designer Claudia Skaff collaborated with her colleague Michèle Chaya, an architect at Mariagroup, when decorating her newly renovated home in London. Indecisiveness was not an issue for the pair – ‘If I like something, I go for it,’ says Claudia – who deftly combined bold pattern with statement-making furniture and artwork, much of which Claudia had been collecting over the years.
Claude Cartier’s incredible Lyon abode
This home and showroom was created to mark 40 years of Claude Cartier’s eponymous studio. The celebrated designer is renowned for her particular brand of boundary-pushing maximalism, where bold colour, graphic pattern and atmospheric textiles converge. The space features furniture from Tachini, Métaphores Paris and art gallery Manifesta, along with her own collection of rugs designed for CC-Tapis – fittingly called ‘So Much Fun’.
The interior designer who made a rental her forever home
When Lehlo Interiors’ Cleme de Grivel Sader had the opportunity to purchase the home in London she had been renting, it was the perfect opportunity to put her own stamp on a property she already knew intimately well. After reconfiguring the ground floor layout with Nash Baker Architects, she turned to her home’s palette. ‘It’s bold,’ she admits, ‘maybe not to everyone’s taste, but it echoes who I am.’
A gallery-esque home in Barcelona
Paint quite literally defines the Barcelona home of Juan Moreno Lopéz-Calull, director of interior design and art consultancy John Brown Projects. A continual stripe of colour runs across the top of the walls and changes hue at every corner is the work of artist Albert Riera Galceran, a friend of the designer, while a white female figure by Sandra Modrego adorns the inside of the front door.
Sherbet shades define this Spanish home
It will come as a surprise to nobody that the home and studio of Masquespacio’s Christophe Penasse and Ana Hernández is an explosion of vivid colour and graphic forms. Known for their exuberant design style, the couple found a property just outside Valencia city and set about creating a space in which they could work and live in total harmony. ‘At first we were very Memphis, then more futuristic, then art deco. We are now a mix of all that,’ says Christophe of their evolving aesthetic. ‘We like to combine and contrast,’ he continues. ‘You can see it in our use of colour; we usually choose one or two for a room and play with the different shades.’
