What does your husband think about the colour, was how one friend reacted, when Katrina Carroll first showed her around in her reimagined kitchen. Her pal made the outdated presumption that, as a man, he wouldn’t be down with the pink.
“My husband chose it,” Carroll says proudly. Better known to her almost 54,000 followers on Instagram as @VintageIrishKat, she shares her semi-detached home in Dublin 12 with husband Adam and their two daughters, Nainsi (8) and Bonnie (5).
“When we first moved in I had wanted a cottage-style kitchen, but seven years on I wanted something more modern that showed a bit more of my personality,” she says.
“I didn’t want a Barbie pink, she says. “I wanted something soft and subtle, a shade that would add warmth to the space.”
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And it does. The shade in question is DH Blossom and part of the Dulux Heritage range – a timeless, luxury colour palette of fittingly classic hues with a modern twist. She used a hard-wearing and wipeable eggshell finish, which she had spray-painted on the cabinets to give them a sleek and even application.
“Adam first suggested the pink because he thought it would work really well with the existing green tiles on the splashback,” she recalls. “I said, you’re right, you’re never right, and so we went with it,” she laughs.
The Dulux Heritage Blossom is paired with Dulux Heritage Marble White walls, a warm bone-colour that works harmoniously with it.
“It completely reframes the space,” she says, but the pink wasn’t Carroll’s first choice. She had originally selected a rich gold colour, namely Dulux Heritage Brushed Gold, one that her husband didn’t think would work in the space. But because she had first talked to a colour consultant at Dulux Heritage, a free service offered by the paint company, she was confident in her final choice. She also bought tester pots and tested several options to get a real sense of how each would look on the walls and how natural and artificial light would affect each.
The colour DH Blossom, a soft pastel pink, was also inspired by several items of clothing in her vintage store, Preloved by Shay and Jo, which Carroll runs online and from a small shop in her back garden. Preloved by Shay and Jo was named after her “very stylish” parents. She admits the pink leather coat is one she is finding difficult to sell as she wants to hold on to it herself – an occupational hazard of the business she’s in.
“I’ve always had a love of vintage, I love the fact that it has a story,” she says. Lots of vintage pieces can be seen dotted around the home too.
She also loves the sustainable aspect of buying pre-loved pieces of clothing and furniture, and is a frequent visitor to the charity shops in her locale and online, pairing together looks for very little.
When first mooted, the kitchen colour divided the household. Her older daughter favoured blue. But once they saw the reveal, all were thrilled.
The pigment works well during the day and at night, and adds a layered look to the hardest working room in the house.
It also brings in the full spectrum of Carroll’s own colour-drenched psyche. Primary pops and intriguing accent pieces are evident on every surface, starting with a lip vase into which she’s put fresh roses.
Above the cream-coloured six-burner range oven is a signed print of 1960s supermodel Twiggy, something she acquired on eBay, which has been given a pop-art treatment by framing it in a monochrome striped frame.
There are tin flower pots in the window that had been relegated to the playroom where they had become repositories for the girls colouring pencils. They are now filled with plants.
The new paintscape really chimes with the Scandi blonde woods of her dining table and cane chairs – a style she had long admired.
“They are my pride and joy,” she says. “I came across them one day in a skip, around the corner from the house.”
Luckily her husband was working from home that day, so she called him to ask him to drive around the corner immediately to pick them up. He obliged, but asked what they were going to do with their existing seats.
“To make room for the new chairs I put the existing seating for sale online and had found a buyer for them in a matter of days,” she explains. “I also hope the experience will teach the girls to be more sustainable in the way that they live.”
The couple have been married for over a decade. They first met in Australia, where she shared a house with a bunch of Dublin girls in the seaside suburb of St Kilda, Melbourne.
He had been living next door with a gang of lads from London. “He knocked on the door to borrow the vacuum cleaner and the rest is history,” she laughs.
They had a vintage-inspired wedding, and bought their smart semi in 2016. Since then they’ve been decorating and refurbishing it bit by bit. She says the pink kitchen has really reinvigorated the space, and that paint is a canny way to get a brand new kitchen feel on a budget.
“I want it to inspire people to use more colour and to be brave in their choices. It is a colour not just limited to the girls,” she laughs.
Explore the full range of colours and recommended colour schemes on the Dulux Heritage website https://www.duluxheritage.ie/en/colours