Vintage lover Katrina Carroll took inspiration from a soft pink 1980s leather trench coat when doing up her kitchen. Her husband’s counsel was also crucial
What does your husband think about the colour, was how one friend reacted when Katrina Carroll first showed her round 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 Her pal made the outdated presumption that as a man, he wouldn’t be down with the pink.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,” Katrina 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, age eight, and Bonnie, age five.
“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.”
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 Kat’s first choice. She had originally selected a rich gold colour, namely Dulux Heritage Brushed Gold, one that Adam didn’t think would work in the space. But because Kat 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, which Kat 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 Kat’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 won 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 Adam 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.
