Making their mark

The Woolstons gave their home a rustic look. Photo / Supplied

Few people would consider it a bonus that the home they just bought was a rundown mess. But Scott and Sharlene Woolston are not your average couple. Scott is a talented furniture maker, while emergency nurse Sharlene has a flair for design and a love of bold colour.

The four-bedroom Hamilton farm cottage they bought four years ago had remained pretty much untouched since it was built in the 1950s. The only thing worse than the tatty and dated decor was the decaying kitchen. "It was a real dump," recalls Sharlene. "The people who owned it had done nothing to it for a long time."

While many people would have been daunted by the challenge, this couple was excited by the prospect of giving the home a total makeover. "We didn't want to buy something that was finished because that would feel like cheating, like living in someone else's house," says Sharlene.

"Scott's so clever at what he does that we wanted a house we could put our own mark on." The sad state of the kitchen meant it was the first area to be renovated. The floor-to-ceiling cupboards that made the space feel confined were demolished and replaced with new plasterboard walls and Scott's custom-made recycled rimu cabinetry. Because the kitchen already had wooden floors and joinery, Scott painted most of the wooden cupboards with a distressed white finish and had the family's white fridge made over with glossy red enamel paint.

Next came the rooms belonging to their three boys - George, 6, Oscar, 4, and Luca, 18 months. Sharlene had planned to paint the walls a bright colour but Scott convinced her to go with a neutral backdrop. "White looks so good with colour added to it," he says. "You have room to go a bit crazy if you want to."

The walls of George and Oscar's room might have been spared, but not the floor. It was painted in bold blue, green, red and yellow stripes, to connect it with the colours in the bedding, curtains and chests of drawers, also lovingly painted by Scott in a cheerfully random array of different test pot colours. "We've done all the things we might not have been allowed to do when we were kids," says Sharlene. "I'd love my bedroom to be like that as well."

Sharlene is a big fan of British interior designer Tricia Guild and has introduced her clashing colour combinations to the family home. "I love how she uses amazingly funky colour," Sharlene says. "She's so bold with it." Scott says he and Sharlene might come at things from different design angles but they work well together as a team. "Sometimes I can be a bit conservative and Sharlene is quite crazy and over-the-top with some of her ideas, but we work well by compromising and meeting in the middle."

"I do have some unrealistic ideas," agrees Sharlene. "He'll say, 'No way', but then usually if I go on about it enough it happens. He really visualises things and how they'll look. He loves surprises and he'll often surprise me with a new piece of furniture he's created for the house."

Practical approach

Rough and ready: Scott has used a distressed effect on a lot of the furniture he has made because it suits the rustic pieces he builds and because three small boys live in the house. "I love how our furniture is indestructible," says Sharlene.

Go with the flow: The Woolstons were hesitant about putting french doors into the children's rooms because it cut down on wall space, but now the kids can race out to their outdoor play area without having to run through the house.

Cohesion counts: Uniformity of detailing like window and door surrounds makes a home flow. Some of the wooden window frames in this home had been replaced with aluminium by the previous owners, but Scott and Sharlene found the original frames in an old shed, so they've begun returning the joinery to the house.

* Leanne Moore is the editor of Your Home & Garden. See the latest issue, on sale now, for more achievable home ideas.