This character-filled home in Sydney’s inner west boasts a colourful past – in more ways than one. Back in the early 90s, it featured on the pages of Belle, revealed in its Memphis splendour, with saturated primary hues and sawtooth joinery, so unashamedly chic at the time. The then-owners, design writer Davina Jackson and former NSW government architect Chris Johnson, had also extended the 1886 villa at the back to create a luminous, light-filled pavilion overlooking a courtyard while converting the attic space into three bedrooms. Between old and new was a double-height void. Meanwhile, cornices, moulded ceilings, architraves and ceiling roses were blissfully intact in the original section. While Ettore Sottsass’s whimsy soon had its day – and the couple later replaced that aesthetic with an earthy, ethnic one…
