A sunny Sydney home inspired by Copenhagen cafes
Photography by Anson Smart
For their latest project, Folk Studio reimagine a Castle Cove home in paintbox brights for a young couple. Seeing the inside of someone’s home can tell you almost everything you need to know about them. What kind of colours they like, where they store their mugs, how they arrange their tchotchkes, if they even have any. Where a minimalist home might suggest its inhabitants lean on the more zen side of things, a colourful one might imply creativity and exuberance. In the case of this Castle Cove property, one might assume the young couple who own it exist smack bang in the middle.
Overlooking the water in Sydney’s leafy northern suburbs, this five-bedroom, 760-square metre home was first built in the 1950s and has undergone plenty of reimaginings over the decades. When it was acquired by its current owners, it was, as Folk Studio's director and principal designer, Mariah Burton, describes, “Grey-on-grey-on-grey… a showroom home that lacked soul.”
Despite taking inspiration from Danish cafes, Burton was careful to ensure the home wasn’t overtly “Scandi.” She avoided a reliance on beige, white and blonde wood and instead leant on a pastel colour scheme accented with poppier hues and functional materials like stainless steel. “We developed a contemporary interpretation of this aesthetic,” Burton explains. “It is an ode to colour, restrained in some areas and confidently bold in others.”
Colour can be a challenging tool to manipulate. Dark hues deployed en masse can make a space feel heavy and cloying; an abundance of brights can lean dangerously close to child’s room territory. In Cove Home, as Folk Studio has coined it, this line is walked deftly. A palette of butter yellow, sage green, pastel blue and apricot is grounded by more robust shades, like burgundy and a purple-tinged brown, which finds pride of place on a sculptural island bench in the kitchen.
