| 107 T T Virginia Wright More than just interior design Marlene’s beautiful Shades of Hydrangea design won the Resene Colour Maestro Award – Residential Interior 2024/25. Photo: Tracey Scott INTERIORS Marlene Hudson Design After 20 years in the corporate world, Rotorua-based Marlene Hudson decided she wanted more from life, and after a skills and interest assessment highlighted her creativity, she studied interior design. Knowing the inherent challenge in starting a new career in her 30s, Marlene continued her education by joining a building company, where she learnt about the process of construction and started helping clients with their interiors. So, by the time she set up on her own, she could not only help clients with colours and materials, but could also design kitchens, bathrooms, wardrobes and laundries from scratch. “I can plan the room and do a full set of drawings for trades to follow, and even submit plans for consent for tiled showers,” she explains. Her understanding of how humans perform tasks in a given space feeds into her detailed designs and drawings, so clients can be confident that features and fittings are in the best place for ease of use and functionality, regardless of which room in the house they are in. To make it easy for her clients to fully visualise the designs as they take shape, Marlene uses software from Professional CAD (Computer Aided Drawing), who not only lease programmes, but also provide support at the end of the phone. Instead of clients having to interpret a line drawing, she enters everything, including textures and colours, into the programme and produces an image more like a photo, so clients can really see where their conversations are taking them. It was the key to success for a recent project, Shades of Hydrangea, which won the Resene Colour Maestro Award – Residential Interior 2024/25. “The client said, ‘That’s exactly what I imagined, I just couldn’t put what was in my head into words.’ It gives clients confidence in the design process to progress forward,” explains Marlene. These clients, like many others, were becoming overwhelmed by all the decisions their builders needed as their renovations got underway. Work and three children meant busy lives. They had already visited various retailers to discuss flooring, kitchen, and the probability of all white walls, and felt like they weren’t making any headway with decision deadlines looming. Marlene has developed her own system for understanding what sort of interior might suit her clients, as she explains. “I ask them questions like, what’s your favourite flower? What sort of movies and TV programmes do you watch? If you were to buy a car, what colour would it be?” In this case, the flowers were lilies and hydrangeas. The resulting white walls (lilies) and use of pastel shades (hydrangeas) are the perfect backdrop for the piece of art the clients bought from Auckland photography artist, Emma Bass, ‘Hydrangeas 8.35am’. Over the years, Marlene has worked closely with Mr Ralph Lighting and Vogue Lighting, and she knew precisely what was needed to highlight the art, while ensuring work and living spaces were well lit without sacrificing ambience. She prefers to keep her business small and personal. That way, quality is assured and nothing is lost from the time she first talks to clients to understand their project to the point where they’re enjoying the space they have created together. Marlene is based in Rotorua, but is happy to talk to clients from anywhere in New Zealand needing help with their interior design. In any home or commercial design the lighting must be functional and aesthetically pleasing. A well-thought-out lighting plan is as important as the fittings used. Vogue Lighting offers our clients this exact service. With an established showroom filled with stunning lights on display and a team of lighting professionals, Vogue will guide you through the lighting selection process. 35b Totara St, Mount Maunganui 07 575 4784 | sales@voguelighting.co.nz www.voguelighting.co.nz At Mr Ralph we pride ourselves on collecting beautifully designed, quality lighting products with an affordable price tag. Lighting has the ability to create different atmospheres and moods, it can be a dramatic design statement or compliment an overall look. Never to be underestimated. Studio - 1032 Gordonton Road, Gordonton 0800 677 2574 info@mrralph.co.nz www.mrralph.co.nz Proudly Supporting Marlene Hudson Design +64 7 848 2005 info@procadsys.co.nz procadsys.co.nz Contact Us As New Zealand distributors for SketchUp and Enscape, we help architects and designers bring their concepts to life with intuitive, efficient software that streamlines design and makes collaboration with builders, contractors, and clients seamless.
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