SYDNEY HOUSE
Vince and Melissa Ciolino’s love of sensational design and colour (think pink) has ensured this home designed by Greg Natale has a happy and totally unique spirit
Vince and Melissa Ciolino’s elegant family home, designed by Greg Natale, is a paean to 1970s glam and mid-century modern
“If you buy good-quality pieces, you’ll have them for life”
pink has long been Melissa Ciolino’s favourite colour. ‘It can be soft and soothing, or it can really stand out, and best of all it makes everyone look good,’ she enthuses. So it’s no surprise to find it lathered in a powdery soft shade, acting almost like a neutral, across most of the walls inside the home she shares with her husband Vince and their three sons in inner-west Sydney. ‘It also really makes whatever other colours you put against it really pop,’ she says.
Melissa also loves the reaction the pink interior gets when people visit for the first time. ‘When they first enter, they expect something completely different – not just the colour palette but details like the staircase are a real “wow” feature point,’ she explains. ‘It takes people’s breath away.’
Melissa and Vince, owners of a boutique construction firm building luxury homes around the city, teamed up with Sydney-based architect and interior designer Greg Natale to overhaul the original one-level brick bungalow bought in 2012, adding a second storey, an extension at the back and a swimming pool. The art deco-inspired clean-lined, curved silhouette Greg created for the front of the house is subtly echoed inside with curved cornices and rounded oblong niches carved into the plastered ceilings on the ground floor to lend rooms added depth.
‘Greg’s wonderful ideas and concepts and Vince’s skills as a master builder have taken this house to the next level,’ Melissa beams. Working to the house’s existing floor plan downstairs – swapping out bedrooms for the study, laundry and stairwell space, and removing a little office from the dining room – Greg then replicated the layout with bedrooms and bathrooms upstairs. Multiple spaces have been designed in a loop to accommodate gatherings for family and friends, big and small – so long lunches or rowdy dinners can flow from kitchen and dining room to the outside courtyard, around the pool and back into the living room again.
Inside, the couple’s approach to creating dramatic interiors is brave – not too many people would embrace rooms layered almost entirely in black (they’ve done that in the media room and study). ‘People are often scared to do a room in a dark colour but I think it makes the space feel larger,’ says Melissa. In contrast, the pink walls elsewhere – inspired by the natural, earthy tones of the Scott Petrie painting hanging in the dining room – demanded something softer so they laid herringbone blonde oak floorboards and a gentle grey terrazzo f loor across the ground f loor instead.
A repetitive use of materials cleverly connects upstairs and downstairs: the same white lacquered oak cabinetry echoes throughout, purple Oniciata marble tops on the bathroom vanities and dressing table, and the same shade of Dulux’s Naked Lady pink (used at one-quarter strength) washes walls through much of the ground floor, up the stairwell and into the master bedroom and walk-in wardrobe. Punctuations of brass – inlaid into wood, as a finish for pendant lights, mirror frames, taps and handles, integrated into coffee table bases and armchair bases and gleaming bright in sculptural accessories – alongside classic vintage collectibles lend ‘a little twist of everything, from 1970s glam to mid-century modern,’ says Melissa.
The result is a house that ‘just really flows,’ enthuses Melissa. ‘The whole house is used, there are places for everyone to be together without being on top of one another. Working with Greg gave us a thoughtfully considered and well laid out home, which is also eminently liveable. You want it to look good but everyone, kids included, has to enjoy it.’