Hutchinson Street by Kim Kneipp
Brunswick-based designer Kim Kneipp fuses vintage with luxury, in her monochromatic Japanese-style family home.
Words: Georgie Ward I Photography: Lisa Cohen
Photo: Lisa Cohen
Photo: Lisa Cohen
Located amongst a residential street in the heart of inner-city Melbourne, Kim Kneipp’s striking family home invites the eyes of those passing by. The house balances elements of light and dark, with its walls and interiors painted a charcoal black, these spaces dance in the sunlight that seeps through glass exteriors.
Kim and her partner Lou Weis, longed to create a home that offered reprieve from the harsh Australian sun, and the fostering of a quiet, tranquil retreat.
Kim’s design endeavours for the home were inspired by the Japanese novel In Praise of Shadows, where she takes notions of Japanese architecture to inspire the deep eaves, soft lighting, lacquered textures, hidden nooks, and shadow-making shapes that scatter her home.
The property stands as a large family home with a variety of internal nooks and zones that blends the couple’s two individual styles.
‘I have a love for salvaged and vintage style and Lou works in luxury design. When we first moved in together he made the quip that his furnishings were all beautiful and mine gave him splinters,’ says Kim.
Finding an aesthetic way to cohesively combine their disparate styles was a guiding motivation in Kim’s design direction.
‘The dark and textural colour palette was the most cohesive way to combine my style with Lous’,’ Kim explains. The home’s moody colours and luxe finishes allow the recycled timbers and vintage elements to feel grounded and balanced.
Growing up in the tropics of far North Queensland, Kim has a strong attraction to the imperfection of raw, natural materials and earthy tones, which is evident in the design decisions of her home.
“I love the crystal-filled granite kitchen island as I am continually discovering new textures and formations within it. It’s a lovely fusing of my esoteric country childhood and the luxe kitchen of Lou’s grandma.”
Kim’s design philosophy is grounded in the idea of first working with what one already has, and then enchanting and expanding on it to suit evolving conditions. ‘For me this is an environmental consideration, in trying to reduce waste, and also a psychosocial consideration of embracing past stories that have brought us to the present moment,’ says Kim.
The home sits in the middle of a residential street in Melbourne’s Brunswick East, surrounded on all sides by mid-level apartment developments and homes in an assortment of architectural styles.
With so much change going on around their family home, Kim and Lou felt that maintaining the vintage character of the home’s facade felt like an important gesture to the heritage of the street.
‘It would have been cheaper to knock down the house and rebuild from scratch. But I love that previous owners can now walk past and remember their life in the original front rooms of the house in its historical form.’
“The home’s moody colours and luxe finishes allow the recycled timbers and vintage elements to feel grounded and balanced. ”
