Designer Anna Spiro's vivid Brisbane cottage indulges her love of mixing colour & pattern

Australian decorator Anna Spiro’s design ethos is bold and brave. She thinks nothing of pitting bright pink or deep orange walls against vivid ikat prints, embroidered throws and antique Persian rugs. Or teaming vintage lights and wicker chairs with strings of African beads, contemporary, abstract paintings and windows with lead lighting. ‘Nothing in my world matches: everything clashes,’ she says.

Based in Brisbane, Anna has, in recent years, started to forge an international reputation. Alongside projects such as (the much Instagrammed) Halcyon House near Byron Bay and Mr Percival’s restaurant in Brisbane’s new Howard Smith Wharves development, she has launched her own handprinted fabric collection, Anna Spiro Textiles, which is now available in the UK from The Fabric Collective.

‘It’s like working on a large jigsaw puzzle,’ Anna says of the way she combines colour and pattern, expensive with inexpensive, modern with antique, the rough with the refined. The result is spaces that feel ‘layered, collected and pulled together in an uplifting and unexpected way. It’s the imperfections and surprises that make a space interesting’. When mixing it all up, she says the key is finding a common thread between palette, pattern and patina, ‘Otherwise you can end up in a real mess.’

MAY WE SUGGEST: A House & Garden editor's guide to choosing paint colour

Nowhere does this maximalist’s ethos resonate more than in the vibrant, eclectic guest cottage that is connected by an external louvred veranda to the designer’s traditional Queenslander house (characterised by verandas that run around the perimeter of the building) in Brisbane’s Bayside area. Anna has lived here for the past decade with her husband and two young sons, about a 40-minute drive from the city centre.

The guest house, an old worker’s cottage converted by the previous owners, is nestled in the generous grounds of the family’s nineteenth-century homestead, surrounded by gum trees, old palm trees, cottage gardens and lush lawn. With no need for structural work – its original features are solidly intact – Anna decided 18 months ago to use the space as a test lab for ideas. ‘It is somewhere to play around with interesting paint colours and layers of fabrics,’ she says. ‘I could have some fun, unrestricted by the tastes and needs of my husband and the boys.’

Across two bedrooms, one bathroom, a spacious sitting room and a hallway, Anna’s skill with vivacious colour combinations soon came to life. An exotic printed linen from Brunschwig & Fils on the sitting-room sofa became her starting point for the rest of the house. Its spirit is echoed in fabrics from Zimmer + Rohde and Décors Barbares in other rooms. Anna says she found inspiration in the natural hues of the Australian bush, ‘From the blue skies, green trees and yellow, orange and pink flowers in the garden to the brown soil.’ Pink always features in her schemes. ‘It’s like a ray of sunshine, bursting through the other colours, bringing unquestionable happiness to any room,’ she explains. She likes to mix patterns in different scales and have a jumble of styles, including florals, stripes and geometrics, but she never sources everything from one fabric company: ‘And I always throw in some plains, in natural textures and hues like linen, hessian and sisal, to tone it all down.’

Read More

A failsafe guide to decorating with strong colour and pattern

It might look like one wild, crazy mismatch, but Anna puts great effort into creating just the right clash, for example, by painting the existing tongue-and-groove walls and ceiling in each bedroom in one colour, and highlighting the architraves, skirtings, cornices and doors in another. ‘It adds a layer of interest and helps create a connection with the fabrics.’

Each room feels unique thanks to a lovingly collected mix of furniture, lamps, ceramics and art – with a bit of every style from art deco to mid-century ‘so it doesn’t date’ – and bespoke elements, such as customised lampshades. ‘This way, the look can evolve over time,’ says Anna. ‘It was important to create spaces where guests feel completely at home – I want them to lie on the sofa, read a book, have a bath, then sink into bed. My goal is to create rooms where people feel inspired and want to linger.’

Anna Spiro Design: annaspirodesign.com.au | thefabriccollective.com