STORY TIME

With a palette that takes cues from eight-year-old twins' favourite hues, this house is a delight for adults and kids alike.

-  Carli Philips

When they bought their home in 2013, Tennille Lafornara, a workers' compensation manager, and her husband Rob, the owner of fruit and vegetable wholesaler Bellarine Fresh, promptly leased it out with a view to renovating down the track.

Swayed by the prized location in Geelong, Tennille confesses that in hindsight, they likely had blinkers on when it came to the amount of work the property needed. "The house had character and we could see the potential, but I don't think we really envisaged the time and effort it was going to take to restore and update a period home, especially since Rob would be doing the building while working," she says.

The couple were right to worry they may have bitten off more than they could chew: it seemed everything needed to be touched, from replacing window frames to restoring heritage details and adding suitable, site-specific fixtures and fittings.

When design studio KWD popped up on Tennille's Instagram feed, she was instantly smitten with the firm's use of hard finishes, but Rob was hesitant to engage someone. "He straight up said no, but eventually, and reluctantly, I managed to drag him along to a meeting. Once we engaged KWD, our dreams grew and we asked the firm to design bespoke furniture, too."

For the interior palette, KWD took cues from Tennille and Rob's eight-year-old twin daughters, Olivia and Lucia, introducing their favourite pinks and purples. "Their bedrooms were the start of the colour story so we wove those hues throughout the house in various tones," says interior designer Kate Walker, director of KWD. "Upstairs, these shades are playful and childlike; downstairs they are carried through in a more sophisticated way. We didn't hold back - we saturated spaces head-to-toe with coloured wallpaper, paint and tiles. We committed to it."