Exploring the Power of Colour and Daylight with VELUX

When it comes to creating a space that you can’t wait to come home to, colour and light are just as important as one another – anyone who’s noticed the way the rich pigments in our paint shift subtly with the changing light is sure to agree. So, when the opportunity arose for one of our expert Colour Consultants to work with the daylight experts at VELUX on a home transformation project, we were understandably excited.

Sharing in our enthusiasm for the positive power of daylight and colour, not to mention our belief in the ability of home to make us healthier and happier, VELUX was a natural partner for our colour expertise in bringing Sean and Sophie’s newly built extension to life.

Having moved in to their 1950s house at the tail end of 2018, Sean and Sophie immediately demolished the four small, gloomy rooms that made up the rear of the property, and set to work on an extension that would suit the needs of their growing family. The result was an ultra-modern, ultra-versatile living, dining and entertaining space flooded with natural light.

Light & Air

Sean and Sophie’s single-storey extension is a wonderful example of a forward-thinking family space that embraces daylight, fresh air and nature, all vital elements to health and happiness. VELUX cites poor air quality and overheating as two commonly worrisome side-effects of indoor living, and in the case of Sean and Sophie, VELUX INTEGRA® electric roof windows are an excellent antidote – as well as filling the extension with light, when connected to the VELUX ACTIVE home kit, the electric windows can be remotely opened and closed using an app which also monitors temperature, humidity, and even levels of CO₂.

“Making sure that daylight penetrates deep into the room is really important when you have such a big space” says Grant Sneddon, a VELUX Daylight Expert. “Roof windows do that because they offer twice as much daylight as a façade window of a similar size, and it really brings the outdoors in.”

Sophie agrees wholeheartedly – “obviously it’s great to have as much natural light as we can in this space, it helps open up, just reflects the light everywhere, and just makes it a really nice airy space for us to be able to enjoy.”

Bright & Bold

It’s this profusion of daylight that our Colour Curator, Joa Studholme, first notices on stepping into the extension. An experienced Farrow & Ball Colour Consultant – our very first, in fact – she’s more aware than most that light is a crucial element in assessing any home’s colour needs.

“What’s great in this room is that you get the light changing throughout the day” Joa says, “and because these paints are so heavily pigmented, they change a lot in different light conditions which makes them feel really alive – not so flat and hard, and particularly when you’ve got fantastic natural light coming from roof windows like this.”

For the palette, Joa took her cues from the couple’s love of mid-century modern design, evident in their retro-inspired furniture, before adding her own contemporary twist.

“I know you really like the mid-century modern feel,” she says to Sean and Sophie, “so we’ve chosen colours which work really well with your furniture, and inky dark Inchyra Blue here creates a fantastic moody atmosphere”. Beginning on the back wall of the snug, where it creates an intimate and welcoming corner for retiring to at the end of a long day, the colour extends up and across the ceiling of the kitchen and dining room to connect the different areas of the extension.

“We’ve used Bone at the back of the room” continues Joa “so that it will reflect the light back into the space – Bone being much more neutral – and added a little bit of India Yellow.” The latter, in the form of a playful block of colour framing Sean and Sophie’s wall art, adds structure and sunniness to the dining room area, while hints of charcoal grey throughout create a cohesive feel with the rest of the room.

“I think without the Farrow & Ball colour consultation the room would probably still be white,” laughs Sophie. “They’ve allowed us to see how different colours can really make parts of the room different, even within the same space.”

But while colour can offer a valuable service in terms of giving each area of an open-plan space its own personality, there’s much more to choosing it than that. A Farrow & Ball colour consultancy is tailored to every element of the space and those who share it, from personal likes and dislikes down to the right finishes for busy households with children or pets. “When we chose colours for Sean and Sophie’s extension” says Joa “we did it to reflect their personalities, to suit not only the way they live but to make the most of the daylight from their new roof windows

And it certainly seems to have done the trick – “I think I can speak for us both to say that we’re going to spend a lot of time in this room from now on,” says Sophie. “We’ve got our kitchen area so we can cook, our lovely snug living area – it’s just a great space all round for us to be able to entertain with our friends and play with our daughter.”