Kim Kneipp is a designer with decades of experience across multiple aspects of design. Starting her career in fashion design, Kneipp transitioned into designing and styling for interiors twelve years ago. Kneipp’s approach is intuitive, uniting the emotional, environmental and energetic experience of space to create connections to people and place. Here, Kneipp shares her thoughts on how rooms can be dressed in a similar way to how we dress our bodies to create richly layered interiors reflective of individual identities. 

There is much written about the healing and empowering properties of colour, with different outcomes attributed to each section on the colour wheel. There are the blues that calm, the greens that create balance, the optimism of orange tones and the open backdrop that neutral shades provide. 

While a quick online search can give a summary of the sentiments attributed to each colour alongside blanket recommendations for their use — advice like avoiding bright yellow colours in a bedroom (too uplifting when you want to wind down at the end of the day) or favouring blues and greens for bedrooms and bathrooms (calming and nurturing) — there is a lot more nuanced and layered playfulness that can be explored in the wide world of colour. 

We find there to be two very reliable sources for finding colour inspiration for the home — the first is the natural environment and the second is one’s wardrobe. 

I spent more than 15 years working as a fashion designer and personal stylist before re-training in interior design and decoration. In my years styling peoples’ wardrobes I would often be given sweeping statements like ‘blue doesn’t suit me’ or ‘I don’t like green’. While I would take this information on board, my personal challenge would then be to show my client the incredible amount of tonal variety that exists within each colour group and that there would be a tone of every colour that they could actually wear. Sure, baby blue drained the colour out of their face, but a dusty teal blue suddenly added warmth and depth that made their skin and eyes glow.

As with our wardrobes, we develop blanket associations to interior colours based on experiences and adventures we’ve had throughout our lives. Yellow might be a colour associated with a favourite grandma’s house that was full of love, but was also full of lace doilies and far too old-fashioned to live with now, while the mission brown paint from our 1970s childhood framed many fun adventures — none of them sophisticated enough for how we now want to live.

Dressing the rooms of our homes is similar to dressing our bodies, it’s all about finding the right tones that create a great silhouette and allow the room to glow. Add a tinge of ochre to that childhood yellow and suddenly you have a beautiful mustard colour that when assigned to a chunky natural upholstery weave gives you the ideal fabric for your family room sofa. 

The happy memory of that sunny kitchen has become a more earthy, more textured embrace for your own growing family. Capture the fun times of the mission brown years by opting for a softer, less saturated brown, with a lovely limewash paint texture, cocooning a room from walls to ceiling in this same neutral tone. The memory of those mission brown times now reads as a sophisticated, textured sanctuary with a background tint of fun.

With nature as our most favourite muse, the options for colour and tone combinations are endlessly inspiring. 

Sometimes it is as simple as picking one thing you really love, examining its colours and layering each of those colours into a space. Take the bark of a eucalypt tree, with its soft pinks, tonal greys, shades of brown and silvery greens. It is the combination of these colours that makes the trunk of the tree so glorious, and so we layer these colours in a room. 

One of the warm greys may become the colour of a wall, the brown is referenced in the timber floorboards and timber joinery, the pale pink is the warm glow of light through a paper lantern, and a soft, silvery grey couch is installed with cushions in tones of dark charcoal and brown, adding textural grounding. 

Then you get to accessorise. Add in the olive-toned side table, the dusty pink vase and some moody feature artworks. By zoning in on one area and finding its equivalent inspiration in nature, we begin to form stories. We begin with one chapter and then add another to add depth to the colour palette. Maybe we extend the colour story by framing the time of day. Say it’s dusk and a host of darker blues and purples or deep red tones now become accents through the space; perhaps it was after a bushfire, so there are the black charred remains of burnt timbers alongside optimistic bursts of new growth greens.

While using colour like this can induce fear, we find that safety comes in the tertiary colour palette. By dialling up or down a colour you like and selecting a slightly muted, dusty or dirtier version of the tone you are drawn to, you can then build a layered story by playing with shades and tones from that similar colour group. 

Using a variety of textures and finishes within that similar shade adds depth and surface interest, allowing you to exhale and feel held by a space. Your eyes are able to slowly take in the textures and appreciate the details as nothing is screaming out to be looked at first. The old adage has always been to add a cushion or a throw to get that splash of colour in a room, but I think that’s akin to relying on a pair of earrings to carry your whole outfit. 

Of course, the earrings help and you look and feel fabulous, but once you stop looking at the accessory, the base layers also need to hold their own. Instead of relying on the cushions, we suggest turning to paint. Paint is one of the best ways to try your hand at change. Start small and select a tertiary tone that either compliments or contrasts with the main piece of furniture in the room.

Rather than just painting one wall, try two adjoining walls, or if it’s a little room, do all of the walls. Then bring in the textures and layers that tone. By selecting a tertiary version of a base colour that you love to wear or love to visit in nature, the sartorial story of your room will be strong. . . and then you can accessorise.

There is a definite feeling of spring in the air. The days are becoming longer, temperatures are lifting and blossoms are beginning to bloom on trees across the country. Inspired by the promise of summer, this month, Australian Design Review (ADR) highlights projects bursting with colour. We’ve also invited designers to share what colour means to them and give insights into how it can be used to great effect.

For more inspiring colour stories, check out the IDEA Colour category finalists.