Paletle PERFECT

Employing texture, form and, especially, colour to casually achieve an elegant effect, this Johannesburg home reflects its owners' refined and inspiring take on contemporary interiors

A house will tell you what it wants,̓ says Theresa Widlake, describing the process of decorating her Johannesburg home.

She adds that it’s also not necessarily something that happens fast if you wish to ‘discover what is just right’ for a space – and then laughingly recounts how her husband repeatedly asked about her ongoing lack of progress as she kept on and on considering precisely how this particular house should be decorated and furnished.

To anyone visiting her home, the fact that Theresa has a highly developed eye for colour, texture and form is immediately evident – and this is something she’s honed over many years. Creating a lovely home has always been something both she and husband Allan have thought important; as she puts it, the regular practice of ‘making our living space visually attractive and relaxing’ is key. (No wonder that their daughter, Mia, is one of the founders and owners of Johannesburg interior and product design firm Studio 19.) As this home amply demonstrates, whether making a space more lovely simply means adding a vase of garden flowers to the kitchen table, or painstakingly selecting just the right artwork to hang in a dining room, it’s a practice well worth spending time on.