Looking for a fun family holiday activity? Our family decided to jump online and take Resene’s colour personality test. For the kids this was a far better prospect than turning off the WiFi for Sunday night Trivial Pursuit.
The big question was - what would our house look like when five different personalities, from different age groups and genders, pick their favourite colours?
It’s no secret our family home is in dire need of a renovation, upgrade, or at the very least a fresh lick of paint. But what would the results mean? Would our home end up looking like a weird mix of strange colours? Were we doomed for an eclectic gingerbread home no-one would want to visit?
I went first and winter ended up being my primary colour. My 13 year old daughter ended up with the same result as me - winter. So far so good - the colour gods were smiling down on us and we had achieved some consistency.
My 11 year old daughter ended up with mixed seasons of spring/summer, and it felt like my nine year old son went completely rogue with a mixed season combination of autumn/summer.
The last one to do the test was my husband who ended up with spring as his primary colour.
We’re fast approaching summer, but winter and spring are our primary colours - was this good or bad? Did we need to look back or forward?
And The Block NZ season eight was over so we couldn’t watch TV to see what Lisa and Ribz would do - probably go pink, or Stacy and Adam - who would go bold with zig-zagging kitchen wallpaper with hands reaching out to you.
We needed to speak to the experts quickly to see what the results meant and what could be done for our poor old home.
Resene’s Karen Warman quickly reassured us. "Children wise – decorate each of their bedrooms to suit their colour personality as that is their key space in the home - so that’s easy if they have their own bedrooms. If they are sharing then you’d need to balance each colour personality."
"As the youngest two are mixed seasons it may be their colour preferences are still developing, so they may end up more towards one season than the other as they get older."
"Really the only one that is quite different to everyone is your son. If you have a kid’s study area, you could also bring their colours into that space."
"For the rest of the home normally the focus is on what the parents like best – so that would be focusing on blending winter and spring looks together," she advised.
"Kids tend to not feel so much ownership over general areas in a home. But you can bring their colours in with things like bean bags, favourite coloured mugs in the kitchen for them to use, blankets they can curl up with on cold winter nights, and potentially some small multi-colour accents bringing the range of colours together – through accessories like cushions."
"Springs and winters like large windows with simple window treatments and cool palettes, so there is good common ground between those you can work with. Look for breezy colours and unfussy layouts. Cool weathered blues, such as Resene Duck Egg Blue or Resene Breeze, are a very popular way to blend both and a range of whites/off whites can work well with glass tables."
"Winter tends to be a cooler harder look, but you can soften it for a spring personality with flowers and small touches of coloured accessories, such as cushions," Karen suggested.
The future looked bright - 'do what parents like best'. I liked this statement a lot. It totally matches my parenting philosophy.
The plan is to make the most of these school holidays, so we’re off to a Resene ColorShop for some Resene testpots.
Go online and take Resene’s online colour personality test, or click here for some seasonal colour inspiration and ideas from Resene.
This article is created for Resene
