When your home is a gorgeous Edwardian villa with stunning period detailing, choosing paint colours becomes a delicate matter. If the colours are too strong, you risk overpowering the very features you love. But if the colour is too light, the grandly proportioned rooms lose a feeling of warmth and intimacy.
The colours chosen by Mike and Mel Lewis for their Hawke’s Bay home, including warm neutrals like Resene Sisal, Resene Napa (in the photograph above) and Resene Double Haystack, are the perfect complement to the architecture and their furnishings.

What was your overall philosophy?

Grand but not precious; always welcoming. We wanted the interiors to complement the building but not be fussy or old-fashioned. The colours chosen are classics and show off the high stud, woodwork and stained glass to great effect.

What part of the house/houses are you most happy with; do you have a favourite space?

So hard to pick just one. The living room is the heart of the house, it's divine in winter with a roaring fire and also lovely in summer, with the doors to the garden thrown open.  Our 'Birch' bedroom is beautiful and unique. It has its original window glass (which survived the 1931 earthquake) and is of a scale you just don't see in houses built today.  On a sunny Hawke’s Bay day, standing in the hallway with sunlight streaming through and lighting up the original stained glass panels – it’s magical.
 
Do you have a favourite colour, and if so why?

We're pleased with all the colours we chose. They work really well in each of the different spaces. Our little girl, Gracie, wanted green in her room. We picked three testpots from Resene in Hastings and she was allowed to chose a colour for a feature wall in her room. We thought she'd go bright, but she opted for Resene Pale Leaf, and it looks great.

What is your advice for someone trying to achieve a similar look?

Play around with half and quarter strengths to determine which best suits the room at different times of the day, and in good and bad weather. Choose great tradespeople who you trust - you'll be living with their work for years to come.
 
What was your biggest challenge?

Working with an old property!

Tip: Check out the Resene Heritage range of paint colours to recreate the authentic colours of our traditional homes. As well as the colour chart, there are also suggested schemes for the various types of older homes.

What inspired the colours that you used?

As a luxury B&B (Hawthorne House) we wanted a restful, welcoming environment for our guests.  The colours used in the bedrooms and common areas reflect this intent. Also, crisp white bed linen looks fantastic against the selected paint colours. 

The Edwardian villa looks stunning set in generous gardens. The exterior weatherboards are Resene Double Haystack and the trims are Resene Burnt Sienna.

The living room is Mike and Mel’s favourite space with its roaring fire. The walls are Resene Sisal and the fireplace is Resene Triple Sisal. All of the trims and ceilings in the house are Resene Quarter Thorndon Cream.

Period detailing includes stained glass, like this is a set of French doors leading off the lounge. The walls are in Resene Sisal.

Daughter Gracie got to choose the colour for the feature wall, which is Resene Pale Leaf. Other walls in her bedroom are Resene Half Tea.

An idyllic quiet corner from which to enjoy the garden. The weatherboards Resene Double Haystack.

The stained glass windows in this bedroom survived the 1931 earthquake that devastated Hawke’s Bay. The walls here are Resene Napa, a darker neutral that works here because of the amount of light the room gets.

The warmth of a classic neutral, Resene Tea, looks perfect in one of the bedrooms.

The bathrooms in the house are in Resene Half Tea.