Project Name: Orchard House
Location: Victoria, Australia
Date Completed: 2019
Interior Designer: Chelsea Hing

This Uber private home perched amongst the rolling hills of a semi-rural setting was given a contemporary facelift using organic materials reflective of the landscape. Avant-garde furniture, art & object were layered to create a deliberate tension in an otherwise monochromatic palette.

Chelsea Hing had worked with the client on a previous house playfully injecting soft colour & organic finishes suited to a country setting. With this house, the brief was to continue that aesthetic, interpreted in an avant- garde way. The client wanted a house that could easily expand for entertaining but still feel intimate enough for family time.

The approach to this project was to work with the existing architecture whilst injecting a more serious tonal palette that lends substance and gravitas to the interior. Polished plaster was used throughout the ground floor to dissolve the separation between the interior architecture & its decoration. Glossy emerald kitchen cabinetry & leather finish green marble island become the centrepiece to the main kitchen/living space.

Undoubtedly the master bedroom ‘blue box’ finished in custom coloured polished plaster from head to toe. Matched right down to the carpet, paint & even the AC vent, the pivot door is even two toned, grey on the outside to match the rumpus outside & blue on the inside to match the bedroom.

Strong colour was used in the kitchen to bookend the kitchen/living room views out to the garden. For the master bedroom, the designer chose to dial down the light drenched space to create a moody blue box in custom polished plaster. Joinery, lighting, window furnishings & services upgrades were undertaken throughout.

Design is about exploring different ways to use materials in a residential context that creates an emotional feeling to ultimately support sense of home. The designer is interested in eliminating plasterboard in place of more organic wall finishes that take centre stage in a space, rather than a blank canvas. This approach then allows for the joyful injection of colour – an offbeat element to create tension amongst an otherwise simple interior. They are working to dissolve the separation between interior architecture and its decoration, to treat the interior with a more architectural lens rather than laying an interior over it. The sustainability principles are built into the idea of ‘adding to’ rather than ‘starting again’.