A Melbourne couple have given an old boarding house a new lease of life.
A new layout and citrus palette has given this former hostel in Melbourne zing, and the family who saw past all its shabby white walls are delighted.
This house in Melbourne’s north-east wasn’t bought for its street appeal, but rather its location in one of the city’s hilliest and leafiest suburbs. Owners Rena and Tim Padman, together with daughters Evie, 13, and Matilda, 11, were looking to move from their compact townhouse in nearby Fairfield when they spotted the property on the internet. But it was far from love at first sight.
“I think my words were ‘spectacularly ugly’,” says Rena, “followed by ‘who could possibly be interested?’” However, on inspecting this 1930s brick house – with a 1960s addition at the front and 1980s section at the rear – the couple’s reaction changed slightly. “Rena and I saw that it could, in the right hands, be transformed into a family home,” says Tim.
Those hands belonged to Multiplicity, an award-winning architecture and interior-design practice with a reputation for turning nondescript homes into something special. Rena and Tim heard about the firm’s interior designer, Sioux Clark, and her partner, architect Tim O’Sullivan, through friends. Sioux is known for her wonderful sense of colour. As well as a penchant for green, she often places unexpected colours together to magical effect. In her designs, mauves, citrus hues, emerald and mint greens are often juxtaposed with darker tones.
“I was keen on having colour from the start, even before the spaces were discussed,” says Rena. The layout certainly needed a lot of sorting. Previously a hostel for outpatients and relatives of patients at a local hospital, it had seven small bedrooms; the plan was to combine or extend some of them. Multiplicity
went further and reworked the house completely, removing three bedrooms from the rear to form the main living area and extending its width by two metres. This new section on the western side has floor-to-ceiling windows and a built-in seat that strengthens the connection to the garden. Outside is a pergola to reduce the afternoon glare. “Colour and texture are how you make a home pleasurable, but getting sufficient light into the house was also paramount,” says Sioux,
Her ideas for colour were, of course, integral to the design. “It’s fascinating to see how Sioux operates,” says Tim. “She looks at colour not just from the inside – and how one colour affects another nearby – but also at the way the garden’s various plants and shrubs relate to the interior palette.”
However, Tim had slight concerns about the yellow laminate suggested for the kitchen joinery, and the charcoal black that was to go on the walls of the original 1930s hallway. “One of the things I didn’t respond to initially was the charcoal brick in the bands wrapping around the entire house. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see the same colour inside,” he says.
When the colours were ‘up’, however, everything started to make sense. In the children’s bedrooms, colour is literally at ceiling height, with their decorative plaster ceilings painted vermilion and mint green respectively, framed by white walls and polished timber floors. Just as colourful are the bathrooms. The ensuite features a patchwork of blue and green tiles, some with a Moorish pattern. The pint-size powder room, adjacent to the kitchen, is accessed through a limequat-coloured sliding door; the laundry door is bright orange, Rena’s favourite.
As for the oversized mint-green front door, it performs as a vibrant, vertical welcome mat. Eighteen months in, the Padman family is happily settled and the reception from visitors is as upbeat as the fabulous new look.
Multiplicity, Brunswick, Victoria; (03) 9388 0790 or multiplicity.com.au.