Amazing Design: Colouring in the content

Well done you. Even at the bare walls stage, the new architect-designed house looks ace. Now for the decoration phase…Oh, oops! No budget for an interiors expert?  Relax, help is here.

Known for her polished interior design in high-end houses, apartments and commercial settings, Nina Skrzynski, who operates as Nina Maya Interiors,  has some proven strategies to achieve a sophisticated look that has a classy amount of colour and movement to warm and individuate.

Here’s how she does it:

Start from the neutral background. Leaning to “my go-to colours, white but not vivid white which can look too hospital or office”, or to the stone shades of grey “for their serenity”, creates “the timeless ground on to which you can add accents of colour”.

“This can make art, furniture or select pieces the focus of a room. You can add in something as simple as a purple orchid and it will go ‘pop!’.” Or yellow lampshades above an island bench in an all-white kitchen. 

In her own apartment, “because I change my mind and mood all the time, the colour is removable”. An example is a startlingly orange vase and the coppery and slate grey cushion covers which tonally reference the black cockatoo photograph. “I work a lot off [given] artworks”, she says.

In the pink dining area of another home, the warm-end spectrum wall paint and alternating pink and white chairs were prompted by a large painting by Lin Utzon (daughter of Opera House designer Joern), “and because the clients wanted a jewel-like sanctuary”. For Maya, the scheme was “very different, but surrounding that painting with colour meant it didn’t stand out as too stark”.

Pricey and select designer pieces, illustrated in the photo gallery in the form of Italian designer chairs or settees in oranges, golds, greens, dark pinks and purples “are great investments”.

“And if you are going to spend $9000 on a chair, why not make it aubergine? Then it really becomes ‘a piece’.”

The colour injection can also be in-built. For example, the copper-covered plinth of the island bench in another marble and white kitchen. “The kitchen was part of the living room”, says the designer. “but I didn’t want it to look too much like a kitchen so I put in the copper which changes the look very dramatically.

“It gives the whole room a new sense of life and luminosity. Why not add a piece de resistance to each room?”