This Co Down home is full of bold colour and vibrant art
A home that has been passed down through a family has been updated with a modern extension and a clear design vision.
Riki Neill is director and founder of RNN Communications, but alongside this she has always had a love of art and design, and this is evident in her Co Down home.
Almost 100 years old, it originally belonged to her grandparents, and her parents also built a house on the same land. “Our home is a house that I have known all my life and spent every day in,” Riki explains. “My husband and I took ownership of the house about eight years ago, and the goal was always to do an extension and to make it ‘our home’. I love architecture, interiors, and style, so if we were going to go for it, I was determined to create a striking modern home that was original, worked for us, and was unique. Space was so important – when living in the original cottage, it was ‘home’ but for me, a little claustrophobic, so more space, modern living and a striking design were key to the design of our new home. The plan was ambitious, and after three designs, in Jan 2023 our contractors broke ground.”
The design by 2020 Architects was carried out by MMM Design and Build, which doubled the space, gutted and completely renovated the old house, all of which was completed in just eight months, which Riki attributes to the work of the contractors, as well as her own planning.
“I make decisions quickly, and I had been dreaming up this new home for years. I’m a firm believer in visualisation so this really helped when it came to making decisions and choosing the interiors. I could walk around this home with my eyes closed before even one brick was laid so making the final decisions on finishes, bathrooms, and the kitchen came fast and with ease. After the eight month build, our home is now a split level single story, four-bedroom house, with his and her bathrooms, two receptions, kitchen/diner and office.”
Riki’s love of her home is evident. One of her favourite aspects, she says, is being able to still feel aspects of the original house, as well as the mature gardens that survived the build. “We have a window that’s exactly the same positioning and size that has been in this house for more than 70 years. It looks towards my parents’ back door and it brings me right back to when I was little, waiting for my parents to return home from work or trips away. Connecting my past with our future brings me a great sense of contentment.”
The choice of cladding on the extension was an unusual one, but is one of Riki’s most loved features. “It’s called Rock Panel Chameleon, and it changes colour with the light outside. That means that the majority of the exterior of our home changes colour – and this is incredible. Sometimes it’s a copper tone, moving to yellow hues, then golden, and by evening light, the building has been transformed into a warm pink tone. This cladding was something that I introduced into the design. It was over budget. We took it out. I added it in. It makes our home and was 100% the right decision.”
Internally, the new layout of the home flows perfectly for entertaining, with large spacious rooms. “Some of my favourite pieces are a 1.5 metre hand-painted tile, which is a true work of art in the master bathroom,” Riki explains. “It’s from an incredible showroom called Ceramica and is one of only three, each unique in their colour. It sits behind a modern, bright red free-standing bath. In my living room, I totally love the black and white striped ceiling, the multi-coloured and custom FAMA sofa – that’s really more of a daybed – and my grandfather’s writing desk that is now an upcycled drinks cabinet.
“For our kitchen, we wanted to create a fun, entertaining space. I opted for a copper kitchen complete with a hot pink wall, fuchsia Stoves double oven and a booth-type dining space that’s upholstered in a red fleck fabric, trimmed with red leather. Our table is years old and really needed to be replaced but I always liked its shape and size, so I upcycled it using a base chalk colour complete with a central pink stripe and pink paint splatter effect.
“We’ve always had His and Hers bathrooms so we continued this in the new home. The main bathroom is finished in blush pink terrazzo tiles complete with a bright red free-standing bath from Elite Bathrooms and red sink unit. The walls are tiled in a subtle blush pink, which offset the massive terracotta, one-off piece of tiled art that is over 1 metre high. It’s a beauty.”
In the main bedroom, the super king bed has a six metre headboard from Irish manufacturer, DFI Beds, who also created an olive green velvet winged bed for the guest room. The bedroom is carpeted in black and white herringbone, which runs throughout all of the bedrooms.
A key part of this home is art. “We have art everywhere,” Riki says. “From pieces that I have collected over the years to my own art from my recent collection. Over the past two years, I have been creating large, colourful, mixed-media pieces, framed in neon, that are available at artbyriki.art. There’s pretty much not one room in our house that doesn’t have a piece, and each one was inspired by things and places that bring me joy. My art is an explosion of colour and textures, the pieces add so much vibrancy to every room.”
It was in fact, working on the home that inspired Riki to pick up her brushes. “Walking through my new home during the build, I realised that my current art collection wouldn’t fill half of the space, so when the builders were off on holidays during July, I spotted our household paint tester posts and decided to create a piece. I had always painted, and have a degree in Fine and Applied Art, but over the past ten years, when growing my agency, there simply wasn’t time for much else.
“This first piece was called Iletta and was of an idyllic restaurant that we had recently visited in Camp de Mar, Majorca. The finished piece turned out well, and is still one of my favourites, but what amazed me the most was the contentment, the joy, and the stillness that I felt when painting.The PR world is all-encompassing, and it can feel very ‘24/7’. I think I’m now wired to be ‘always on’ but much to my surprise, the brushes and palette knives helped to quiet the mind.”
She says that the pieces act as reminders of places and experiences, from a mood to a specific location. “I’ve launched ART by RIKI – my art business, which is for my original art only. My first show just took place at an incredible boutique in Belfast called Peel, and I was so delighted with the response. I love colour and interiors, and for my growing number of customers, I’m now beyond honoured that a piece of my art takes pride of place in their homes. ART by RIKI is ‘for the originals’ – it’s for people who aren’t afraid to make a statement with their choices, are unique and have eclectic tastes. Each piece is truly an original, a one-off. There are no prints as I firmly believe that a print simply doesn’t cut it in terms of capturing the energy, the texture, the detail and the many layers that go into each piece. The number of art pieces will be limited as I still have a very busy and energetic PR company to run! Each ART by RIKI piece comes with a back story, which can be read on the website, and the goal is to produce 15 – 20 originals per year that are unique and play a special role in my clients’ homes.”
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