From global beauty boss to first-time renovator, Aimee Connolly brings her signature eye for colour to a room transformation with Dulux Heritage.
As one of Ireland’s most successful businesswomen, beauty entrepreneur Aimee Connolly is no stranger to a challenge. She founded her much-loved beauty brand, Sculpted by Aimee, fresh out of UCD in 2016 with €10,000 she’d saved from her make-up artist work while she was an undergraduate there.
Ten years on, and Aimee’s energy, hard work and vision have ensured that the brand is going global: in addition to its Irish locations and wide online availability, it already has a presence on London’s iconic Carnaby Street, and this year, the US is firmly in her sights.
In tandem with all those business endeavours, her next big project is on matters domestic: Aimee and her husband John are about to buy their first house, even though they have rented it for many years.
It’s a big deal, huge. “We’ve actually been renting here for the last five years, and we’re currently in that process,” she says. “It feels very adult-y to be talking about our first home, which is great.”
The house is a Georgian townhouse in Dublin 6. “It’s an amazing location, it’s a compact enough size, but it’s perfect for the two of us,” she says.
The current owners have already extended downstairs to create an open plan area, and of course, Aimee has ideas of her own.
“We only decided a few weeks ago that we would actually go ahead and buy the house, so I feel like I’m just starting to pull the feelers out.”
Already, they’ve decided that an upstairs extension is a must. “That was always the plan, because we have the extension downstairs, so the whole idea was, right, we can buy it if we can safely extend it up to get an extra bedroom.”
Downstairs, too, is set to get a refresh. “The extension itself is modern enough, but we’re looking at potentially extending slightly downstairs in the open plan, out into the garden a bit. That would offer a little office, or maybe just an extra bit of space for whatever we choose to do with it.”
Aimee is also thinking of other ideas to make the space theirs. “I will definitely update the kitchen a bit, probably more of an aesthetic update, I would say, rather than function. And I am very intrigued by underfloor heating!”
As the process becomes real, more and more ideas are bubbling. “All of a sudden your mind goes ninety,” she laughs. “Oh, I could put in new flooring, or I could do this, or that. And then my husband’s like, what budget exactly are you working to?”
Organised and practical, Aimee says her business experience should stand her in good stead managing the project. “My first question to the architect was ‘What’s your time frame? What’s the critical path?’”
Before all that work gets underway, she has just gotten some valuable renovation experience with a makeover of her content room.
“This is kind of like the spare room upstairs,” she says. A multi-functional space, it’s part walk-in wardrobe, and is also used to create content for her social media accounts. “And I’m constantly packing and unpacking, and I use it for putting outfits together for different events,” she adds.
Happily, the project dovetailed neatly with a brand refresh she and her team have been working on.
“We’ve gone through a bit of a branding treatment project the last 12 months that we’ll continue to roll out now,” she says. “Colour was a huge part of that, and we wanted to mature our pink and modernise ourselves as we globalise, so that we weren’t deemed too young or too unsophisticated. Colour was a massive driver,” she says.
As a makeup artist, working with colour is innate. “I’ll know straight away when I swatch something, if the pigment is off. Or when we’re shade matching, I can look at you and say ‘you’re going to be this shade’. And again, it’s funny when new people join the team, they’re like, ‘oh my God, that’s like a superpower’. Whereas I’m like, is it not instinct?”
That native ability to pick the perfect colours has been honed on her content room project, and may provide a bit of a clue to the new direction of the Sculpted brand.
“I wanted to pick up on the different accents that kind of complement what we’ve done with the brand, but that also added a bit of dimension to the room,” she says.
“I was conscious that because it is quite a small space, I didn’t want to make it feel too small, but I wanted to give it dimension, because it’s also quite plain.”
Three Dulux Heritage shades were brought into play to create this soft, appealing space. Aimee chose Potters Pink and DH Blossom for walls and woodwork, with Fitzrovia Red for an accent wall. Before she went ahead, she did a call with a Dulux Colour Consultant to sense-check her picks.
“I was quite clear on the three colours. I knew exactly where I wanted them to go and how I wanted them to play together, but I took Dulux up on their offer of chatting with one of their consultants because it is a smaller space and I didn’t want to overpower it,” she reveals.
The consultant made a suggestion to use Dulux Heritage Potters Pink on the ceiling instead of a more usual white or cream shade. “I thought that was a great idea,” Aimee says. “She was dead right, it’s lovely. I wouldn’t have thought to put it on the ceiling, but it really made it more cohesive.”
With walls and ceiling washed in this delicate pink tone, DH Blossom was used as a slightly darker accent on wardrobes, skirting, and the fireplace.
“It added a little bit of something to the room without being overwhelming or making it really dark,” she says.
The deep, dramatic Fitzrovia Red may seem like a bold choice, but Aimee chose it with confidence. The fireplace is on this wall, and she wanted it to pop off against an accent shade.
“It was in between that or Florentine Red, but Fitzrovia is slightly lighter and pinkier, which I think was the right call,” she says.
“It’s not like a harsh, cool red, it has the pinkiness to it and very much reflects the kind of deeper tone that we’ve brought into the brand, and just gives a lovely lift to the space.”
South-west facing, this is a light, bright room. “It’s nearly so bright that you have to wait for the sun to go down, but ultimately, it’s a huge positive,” she confirms.
And perhaps more importantly, the room’s new function has streamlined a process that used to be quite time-consuming. “With the diary being so busy, I need something that I can jump in and out of without having to set up each time or spend ages on lighting.”
Now that the room is complete, how does she feel about it? “I obviously know the impact from working on it, but even walking into the space now feels so different,” she says. “It is mad, what a fresh coat of paint does!”
Discover the Dulux Heritage Range. See Duluxheritage.ie for a list of stockists.
