Work – just a bit

Hybrid working arrangements have inspired many of us to carve out an office space at home.

If we’ve learnt anything in the past few years it’s that working from home, even if it’s just some of the time, is great. Some of us found the loneliness of lockdowns a bit disheartening, while others thrived on the solitude and the forced pause in our sometimes frantic lives.

Many office workers and employers have taken the learnings of having to work from home during Covid lockdowns and emerged with a hybrid style of working where many of us with go into the office most days but choose to work from home maybe one day a week.

It’s inspired many of us to carve out an office space at home – it doesn't have to be a full-on fancy office if you’re only working from home one day a week but it sure beats working at the kitchen bench or the dining table.

There’s a school of thought that says a workspace should be stimulating, with bold colours to get the cognitive juices flowing. But conversely, a desk area that is awash with calming tones is also good for concentration and therefore productivity.

If you wanted to give the room a lift and inject a touch of energy, try accents golden ochres such as Resene Sunbeam or Resene See The Light as yellow is said to stimulate the intellect. There are many reasons for choosing off-white or cream for your walls. It’s a timeless colour that enables you to change out your furniture and accessories to ring in the fashion changes. White is elegant and gives a sense of refinement. It’s a relaxing colour, which can help reduce visual busy-ness.

Choosing to paint a room in white sounds easy and safe, but you can put just as much time and energy into choosing the right white, than you would with a bolder colour.

Whatever type of white you’re after, here’s how to make the best use of the Resene Whites & Neutrals collection by understanding the paint codes. Beneath each paint swatch is not just the name but a code which starts with a letter. That tells you the base colour of the paint. So Y is for yellow, BR for brown, G for green and N is for neutral (which means black, or rather grey once you put it with white).

Some paint colours cross from one base to another depending on their strength, for example, Resene Half Pearl Lusta’s code starts with a Y but Resene Quarter Pearl Lusta starts with a G. The science of paint is intriguing.

Other warm creams to try are classics such as Resene Quarter Spanish White and Resene Half Pearl Lusta, but also Resene Half Blanc, Resene Half White Pointer and Resene Merino. Check out the Resene Whites & Neutrals collection of colours for some great options. Most of the off-whites and creams in the collection come in eight different strengths so you can build a cohesive tonal colour scheme by using varying strengths on the walls, ceiling and trims of a room.

Easy DIY vase hack

Add texture with a simple DIY project. Buy op shop vases or use one you already have that you’re not so fond of any more, buy some jute rope and wind it around the vase, gluing in place as you go. Then paint the rope and/or the parts of the vase that are still showing using Resene testpots. You can use the rope on just the bottom part of the vase or up the entire length, or paint half of it, leaving the other half raw.

Project by Vanessa Nouwens. Photography by Bryce Carleton. June 2022