When Melbourne based Interior Designer Virginia Blue of Blue Fruit Design was tasked with bringing new life to this late Victorian cottage, she turned to Olde English Tiles for a mosaic pattern to maximise a feeling of space and usability for the young family who now call it a happy home.
Virginia landed on the Gemstone pattern from the Scott Weston designer series, customising it with her own unique colour palette.
“The colours were selected to reference the age of the late 19th century home, in a mix of warm earthy hues and black for contrast, which were colours that were in use at the time the cottage was originally built, but also work well for today’s palette.
The old bathroom was very dark, and felt very small. The new bathroom feels light, airy and spacious. The Gemstone pattern was selected for the floor tile to play tricks with the eye, to make it feel larger than the room really is.
Having no obvious boundary or edge, and not encouraging the eye to follow a straight line to the wall, as well as using very small tiles, creates an optical illusion of space and proportion.
"To create consistency throughout the cottage (and further play on the sneaky psychological trickery) we used the same floor tiles and Gemstone pattern in all the areas requiring hard floor finishes.
The laundry, bathroom, fireplace hearths and even the front porch now all sport these same beautiful tiles."
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