Anya Brighouse uses a vibrant palette of clashing brights to make her old home seem new again.

Words and Production LeeAnn Yare     Photography Larnie Nicolson

interior designer and fashion writer Anya Brighouse surrounds herself with a world of colour.  

Bold statements come easily to Anya, who found colour her greatest inspiration decorating the stunning Mt Eden villa she shares with her husband Mark and children Madeleine, 13, Riley, 10, and Theodore, 7.

Inside it you’ll find evidence of her other passions – playful patterned and textured fabrics, and stacks of books and magazines about interiors and style.  

Her home is never static because Anya has an amazing talent for reinvention, using her portfolio of clever decorating tricks so her home rarely looks the same month by month. She admits with a laugh she can’t help re-styling corners, or even entire rooms, and so constantly “messing with things” has become an everyday affair for her.

Eleven years ago, when Anya first spotted this house in the newspaper, it was separated into two flats, with a door halfway down the hallway dividing the two. Anya and Mark admit they may have been a little naïve back then buying a house without even completing a pre-purchase check – something they would never do now – but after looking at more than 40 houses, they decided this was the one.  

The first step of the renovation plan was to remove the dividing wall between the two flats, so they could reconfigure the rooms so the property would make more sense as a single house.  They put french doors between the lounge and the kitchen and dining area, which was a great way to open the two spaces while keeping some separation when they need it.  

Step two was to gut the kitchen and bathrooms, and then plaster and paint the entire interior.  

A couple of years later came step three – a rear extension containing a guest bedroom and another bathroom, completed just before Theo was born.

After the first renovation, the walls in Anya and Mark’s home ranged in colour from soft grey to a dramatic chocolate brown in the lounge, and then striking individual colours in each of the children’s bedrooms.  

However, once they completed the renovation the couple had itchy feet and started looking for a new home. They were disappointed to find ticking everything off their shopping list was more difficult than they expected.  

The extended their search to cover all of central Auckland, but they still couldn’t come up with a good reason to leave their five-bedroom villa behind.  

They were renting a weekend bach at Matarangi at the time. Says Anya: “It was tiny, but it had all my favourite bits of furniture in it, lots of simple whites with bright happy colour thrown in.”  

Back in the house, in quite a contrast to the darker, moody colours of their home’s walls, Anya decided to make over the interiors with lots of white and bright, clean, happy colours. The main living areas are now white throughout, and even with the dramatic change from dark chocolate to white walls, the lounge remains Anya’s favourite room.  

“It is essentially our ‘adults only’ room. Sometimes it’s just wonderful to escape into that room with a book.  There’s something about the light in that room that I really love, and right now it has all my favourite pieces of art and all my favourite fabrics and colours all in one room.  

“I love sitting on the couch, and just looking at the beautiful piece of art from my good friend Erin O’Malley’s last exhibition.”  
The children’s bedrooms are the three rooms in the house where bold colour makes a serious statement on the walls.  These are not scaled-down ‘feature’ walls. The entire rooms are all vibrant colours, and even their character doors have been painted to match.  

Just recently Madeleine and Theo have swapped rooms, and in a single stroke Anya has made their old home feel new again.  
“Madeleine would have stayed in that room, if it weren’t for the fact that she just grew too tall for the cavity space over the door that was her built-in bed,” Anya explains. When Anya asked Theo what colour he would like for his room, his answer was ‘boy purple’, to go with his other favourite colour, red.  

“I’ve tried to make sure everything in the kids’ rooms, colour-wise, is tonally the same. That way if they get a bit bored, I can swap a few things from one room to the other and it all just seems to go.”

Madeleine wanted to keep the blue walls Theo had in his room, because she wanted a more grown-up room that didn’t look too girly.  

Completing her unconventional style is a much-loved retro blanket her aunt crocheted, a coveted postcard that artist Misery drew for her that hangs above her bed, and a vintage industrial metal shelving unit that is now home to many of her collections, and doubles as a desk.  

Anya's husband Mark is a pretty laid-back kind of guy, and doesn’t have strong opinions when it comes to her decorating, but she thinks of what he prefers when she designs a room.  

“I know the pieces of furniture he really likes, so I never make moves to get rid of them, or revamp them too much, as I know he likes them the way they are,” she says.  

The master bedroom has been given a very simplistic treatment, almost minimal and fuss-free when compared to the remainder of the house.  

Anya admits: “I can’t leave things as they are for too long, but sometimes that just means a can of spray paint to change the colour of something, or sometimes a vase of fresh flowers is enough of a change to satisfy me for a while.” Her wish-list includes Amarapali Peony fabric from Designer's Guild, and a Workroom angle table lamp.  

“Also, at some point I would have loved to have whitened the floors, something I would have done first time round if I had believed we would still be here now,” she says with a laugh.

Now ready for their next challenge, Anya and Mark believe it’s the right time to hand on their family home to new owners.  

She has already a long list of ideas for the next chapter of their lives, and yes, they will involve colour.  

“I have come to realise how much colour makes me feel positive, happy and blessed.  Something I often say to my clients is, once you have found what you really love, you can’t go wrong.”

To see more from this home pick up a copy of the lastest issue of homestyle. On sale now at supermarkets and book stores nationwide.