‘White shoebox’ now maximalist masterpiece
Minimalism may be all the rage, but nothing could have convinced stage director Rachel Rouge to leave her apartment looking like a “white shoe box” after she bought it.
The director of the upcoming Wellington Comedy Club Rainbow Showcase bought the 50m² Te Aro apartment in 2020, at the height of the market, after a long search for her perfect first home.
Finally she found it on Courtenay Place. The apartment was bijoux, but it had a little balcony overlooking the backs of the surrounding buildings, and it was minutes from the theatres and the capital’s night life. Rouge paid around the average for an apartment of that size in that location.
When she put in her offer, she also submitted “a little cat resume” for her cat Deborah to the body corp.
“It was my only condition. When I went unconditional it meant that the body corporate approved Deborah to reside in the apartment.
"I wanted to be very central. I wanted to have the outdoor space for my cat. And it had to be a place that would accept a cat because not all body corps do.“
Once she - and Deborah - settled, the real work began. The flat’s décor was neutral, bland. But Rouge had an “eclectic, maximalist, dark academia" vision for the space.
"I'd been flatting for 25 years before I bought this place, so I'd made a lot of interior design mistakes on other people's mortgages.
“I'd managed to work through my style and what I liked - realised the benefit of those 3M strips that don't leave holes in the walls. I knew that I could transform any space."
On a tight budget, she used a lot of tricks and upcycling nous to create the space she wanted. In the kitchen, an ordinary white fridge was glammed up with a vinyl peel-and-stick covering to match the red glass splashback.
A long apothecary-style credenza was created from a pair of inexpensive Warehouse lowboys, upcycled with with apothecary-style handles ordered from Amazon.
Instead of expensive Mid-century shelving, she re-purposed a set of Bunnings’ Fexi Storage strips and shelf brackets to create an adjustable shelving system in the living room.
Rouge spaced the strips on the wall to give the appearance of wainscotting. The shelves were made from precut pine boards Rouge varnished herself.
"It's the little things that you learn along the way but also, realising that I can upgrade and make things to make it feel like my home without a huge investment.
"Especially paint. It's not cheap, but it's just cheaper than wallpaper. Painting just completely changes the space and it's pretty easy to do."
In the living room, Rouge used multiple complementary colours to create a cosy, almost Victorian theme. On three walls, she used Resene Blumine, a dark teal, on the shelving wall is Resene Calypso, a lighter blue, to make the most of the single source of natural light in the room. In the bedroom, a smoky, dark blue-grey colour, Dulux Knights Point, creates a moody, cosy atmosphere.
Tired of seeing white ceilings and trim in even the most Gothic interior designs, Rouge’s ceiling is gold.
"I didn't want it to look like Trump Towers, but it was really hard to find the right kind of paint. So it took a bit of trial and error.
“I'm just not a fan of white. So I thought, because it is a dark space, because I only have one source of natural light, I needed something that would bounce the light around the room."
The bathroom was a larger, and more costly job. But she mitigated the cost by planning and buying for the renovation in advance.
First the room was reconfigured to make more of the tight space and give her room for a bath, closing off a door from her bedroom to the bathroom, which also created a walk-in wardrobe.
Then Rouge splashed out on her dream bath: a claw foot tub she was able to import from the UK for less than the cost of a similar bath here. She puts that down to then-UK Prime Minister Liz Truss’s roller coaster leadership tanking the British pound.
“I had a bath sitting in my bedroom for over a year before I could install it, but it was worth it because it was the bath I wanted.
“The bathroom reno] took a couple of years of saving and I'm lucky my brother's a builder so he could help out.”
Despite the flat’s compact size, the to-do list “doesn't get shorter”. Eventually she would like to add crown mouldings with LED lights behind them, but that’s a way down the track.