Take a closer look at Megan Harrison Turner's dress up/dress down teeny house

29 Sep 2021

 Stylist and interior designer, Megan Harrison-Turner thought outside the box when creating her cardboard teeny house. The Auckland-based creative was inspired by the idea of playing with dolls when she dreamed up her teeny house’s mix ‘n’ match, ‘dress up/dress down’ concept.

 “When I first saw the teeny house, my mind immediately went to dolls and how you can change the outfits,” says Megan.

“I wanted to be able to change the look of the walls and the floor in the teeny house really easily using different wallpapers for the walls and floors. They are interchangeable depending on what mood you were in.”

 Megan created a series of boards which are covered in wallpaper designs including Resene Wallpaper Collection MR71802, Resene Wallpaper Collection KEN405, Resene Wallpaper Collection FJ40810 and Resene Wallpaper Collection MR71808, as well as some of her own custom painted artworks. The boards slot into the cardboard teeny house’s floors and walls.

 Megan says she chose wallpaper designs which were quite illustrative and ‘painterly’ to create a teeny house with lots of texture. Resene Wallpaper Collection MR71808 in the attic master bedroom ties into the white, grey and beige neutrals she used on the walls in the house including Resene FX Metallic in Resene Bedrock in the dressing room, Resene White Pointer in the bathroom and Resene Quill Grey in the entranceway.

 “I was interested in playing with texture and scale with my teeny house,” says Megan.

 “For the Resene Bedrock metallic I used a fine artist’s brush and made sure the strokes of paint went all the way down the wall as this creates a better finish.”

Megan’s mix ‘n’ match teeny house features interchangeable walls and floor patterns featuring wallpapers from the Resene Wallpaper Collection.

 She also used Resene FX Metallic paint in Resene Blast Grey 1 on the floor of the dressing room, and then used a stencil to paint a Moroccan-style pattern over the top using Resene Sea Fog applied using a dry-brushing technique.

 “With stencilling, less is absolutely more when it comes to the amount of paint on the brush,” says Megan.

 “Try not to wipe the paint on but instead try stippling it on. Dab the brush a few times so you’ve taken off quite a bit of the paint before you touch the stencil, that seems to give a better look because the paint does bleed underneath the stencil very easily.”

 Megan used the cardboard envelope that the teeny house came in to create a dining table and chairs. Other creative materials included a Chinese fan which she transformed into a bathroom privacy screen, some packaging foam for a couch, a ramekin which became a bathtub and Champagne cork cages which in Megan’s expert hands became chairs and a stool.

 “It probably looks like I drink too much, but I’ve saved these up for a while,” she laughs. “Making the chairs is just a little thing of mine I do on occasions. If I went to a restaurant and we are celebrating, then I do ask for the basket and that's my little memento,” says Megan.

The outside of the teeny house is painted in Resene Dusted Grey and the roof shingles are pieces of card painted with a basecoat of Resene Dune and over painted with Resene Non-Skid Deck & Path in Resene Relic to create a textured look.

The upstairs master bedroom features Resene Wallpaper Collection MR71808. The wooden bed is stained with Resene Colorwood in Resene Touch Wood.

Megan cut holes in the back of her teeny house to create windows, which she filled with pieces of clear cellophane. The bathroom is in Resene White Pointer with Resene Alabaster on the window trims. The floor of the bathroom is made of Resene Wallpaper Collection MR71802 which has been cut into squares and re-configured into a tile formation. The privacy screen in the bathroom is made of a Chinese style fan and Megan used Resene Wallpaper Collection MR70502 to make paper butterflies for the wall and a leaf design cut from Resene Wallpaper Collection KEN501.

The dressing room features walls in the metallic Resene Bedrock and window frames in Resene Alabaster. The mosaic floor is created using a stencil using Resene Sea Fog over a basecoat of Resene FX Metallic in Resene Blast Grey 1. The wooden furniture came from a $2 store and is stained in Resene Colorwood in Resene Touch Wood. The rug is made from a paper doily and is painted in Resene Coast. The chairs are made from champagne cork cages and the curtain is a bamboo sushi roller, the left wall is a custom design by Megan.

The butterflies on the wall are made from Resene Wallpaper Collection MR70502 and the right wall is Resene Wallpaper Collection KEN104. The carpet floor is made from crushed velvet which has been finished with Resene Colorwood Whitewash. The front door and hallway to the left is painted in Resene All Black and the walls are Resene Quill Grey and the marble floor is Resene Wallpaper Collection FJ40810.

The left wall is in Resene Wallpaper Collection KEN405. The centre wall is painted in Resene White Pointer and the leaf design is cut out from Resene Wallpaper Collection KEN501. The table is painted in Resene Half Taupe Grey from the Karen Walker Paints collection the floor is made from pieces of ice block stick

Published: 29 Sep 2021