Welcome to Colour Monkey Colour Monkey is a Colour and Interior Design Consultancy business which travels throughout the Hunter Valley assisting clients with their design requirements with our objective to create a look and feel to a space which reflects your personality and lifestyle. Colour Design Colour has the power to enhance our lives, to change our mood, our behaviour and our perception and with formal training in applied colour psychology Colour Monkey can assist you to have a home or office which will complement your needs. If you are looking to renovate your current home, Colour Monkey can help you make the most of what you have by assessing your current space and needs and putting together a proposal to enhance your property. If you are planning to build, Colour Monkey can assist with all details including colour, products, specifications, and the interior and exterior. Getting the colour and design right the first time can save in costly mistakes and will ensure that you will be happy with the end result. Interior Design A holistic approach should always be considered when looking to improve a space, whether in the home or the workplace and at Colour Monkey we work with you to achieve the best possible result for your home of office, looking at internal layout, finishings, furniture placement with attention to detail including soft furnishings, flooring, lighting and window coverings. Ensuring good balance along with a harmonious colour scheme are the basics for any well styled interior. Property Staging Statistics show that within the first 30 seconds of entering a home most buyers will have decided whether to not they like the property, and that 95% of potential buyers start their search for a home on the internet. First impressions are therefore vital when deciding to sell a property and this is where Colour Monkey can help. Staging a property to its greatest potential for sale, not only increases the look aesthetically but can dramatically improve sale turn around time and give the homeowner a greater return on their investment. About Us Lyn Collison is the principal of Colour Monkey and has a passion for colour and design as well as an extensive knowledge of colour theory, its application and colour psychology. Lyn is a graduate of the Ruby Colour School, the International School of Colour and Design as well as The College of Interior Design and is a qualified and award winning Colour Consultant and Interior Designer. Please contact Colour Monkey if we can assist you with to enhance the space you live or work in. Adjust your view, call or email us today. Testimonials Thanks very much for all the help you gave us with our recent planned renovation. Your advice regarding multiple aspects such as colour schemes, kitchen design, space options, floor coverings, lighting and furnishings was invaluable. As we had limited knowledge of current trends, planning our project would have been quite overwhelming had it not been for your patience and expert knowledge of the decorating and design options that were available and how they best fitted in with our lifestyle and taste. It was a pleasure to have your involvement and expertise and we would definitely recommend your work to others planning work around their home. Besides the achievement of a more integrated and professional design result, employing your services also saved us time and (I’m sure) lots of frustration, if we had tried to plan it all ourselves! Thanks again, Kim and Russell Lyn took our simple ideas and developed them to their fullest potential in a way we could not have imagined. Lyn was very thorough, she took an interest in all the colour schemes of the house and combined them in a tasteful manner. Lyn helped us to see where the colours could be adjusted to give more depth and perspective. Lyn was very skilled in the way she blended the different colours from room to room so that no one colour dominated and there were no clashes. Lyn dealt directly with the painter and made sure everything happened according to plan. Carolyn Burgess We decided not to risk getting such an important choice wrong, and that’s why we engaged Colour Monkey. We are so glad we did.. Ted and Therese Grant Thank you for all your hard work you are very professional and dedicated to your clients. Thank you, Sandra & Ian Some months ago we made a decision to “smarten up” the upstairs floor of our home at Lake Macquarie. We moved into our new home in December, 2005, and furnished it with furniture brought from our old home in Merewether. Our new place is large and modern in architecture and the finished product just did not look right. We made enquiries around the district for a suitable Interior Decorator and finally decided on Lyn Collison and her Company, Colour Monkey. Lyn came to our home for an initial consultation and we were immediately struck by her friendly, professional manner. The end result that was achieved is a testimony to Lyn Collison and her attention to detail shown in the selection of colours, furniture and accessories. Lyn did most of the leg work in locating suitable pieces and all we had to do was follow up and make a selection. This would be particularly important to any prospective user of Colour Monkeys’ services. Lyn made our task pleasant and the end result very satisfying to both of us. Friends, who have visited, invariably comment on the remarkable transformation of our upstairs area. Norelle & Robert Wallace We are writing to thank you very much for all the help arid advice you gave us when we were renovating our home. Along with the colour scheme for the interior, you also advised colours for the exterior of the house which complimented the era of the house and enhanced its street appeal. Your advice has been invaluable and certainly made the daunting task of choosing colours a real pleasure. We are extremely happy with the results and highly recommend your services to anyone needing advice in this area. Once again, thank you so much for all your help. Lisa Hollins & Treicia Shore Living in rural NSW makes accessing a lot of services a very difficult task. Recently when faced with the desire to update our kitchen/dining area I found it very difficult to find the support locally. I was becoming distressed and my daughter came to the rescue making contact with Lynette Collison the principal of Colour Monkey. The process of providing long distance design advice is a tricky one. From my initial contact with Lyn my worries evaporated. I had emailed her photos of the kitchen/dining area and described the context to her and what I hoped to achieve. Lyn worked within the parameters of what had to stay, what could go and our budget. I feel the success of my experience can be put down to Lyn’s ability to really listen to what I was asking for. She had empathy for my situation, asked really good questions which made me think hard about what I really wanted. She gave me plenty of time on the phone to make sure we were on the same wavelength. Lyn provided good written feedback on our discussion which further clarified our shared understanding of what the end product would be. Lyn did the research sending me samples of product and the colour schedule. Lyn also provided design advice; those little touches that will make the whole area come together. Lyn communicates well, clearly describing what is available and what would suit. I felt that she had a clear vision of what would fit my house and me. She has a wealth of knowledge in the areas of product choice, colours and design advice. Her guidance brought clarity to the overwhelming abundance of information that is out there and gave me the confidence to proceed with the renovation. Her support also allowed me to clearly communicate what I wanted with my kitchen maker. Lyn has remained interested in the project and her offer to continue to be available to support has been appreciated. My experience with long distance consulting through Colour Monkey has been a very positive one. I can comfortably recommend this service to you. Yours sincerely, Dianne Moncrieff We built a new holiday home for the family adjacent to the Karuah River at Allworth, a rural village about 2 kilometres off the Bucketts Way and 20 minutes from Raymond Terrace and found Lyn Collison of Colour Monkey on line. Lyn was a tremendous help and with her flair, trained eye and excellent consultative skills we have achieved an outcome in colours and room layouts that would have not occurred left to our own endeavours. The consultation was in two parts at our request. The first was a visit to the property when main themes and colours were selected and the second was a round table to finalise room layouts and the kitchen. After the second consultation Lyn produced colour schedules for our builder and kitchen supplier and room layouts making the best use of the attributes of the house and view. We have a great outcome. It was a great experience working with Lyn and Colour Monkey. Sincerely Geoff & Sharyn Peattie Just over a year ago, we moved into our brand new home in Floraville. When we moved in, we bought new furniture to match the neutral colour scheme, so we didn’t want to change the pieces we already had. We also purchased a few sculptured art works for the walls, but we felt that something was missing.......and that was when Colour Monkey stepped in! I put an enquiry on a home improvement website looking for an interior designer/colour consultant to “jazz up” our place and to get ideas on how to make our home have that “WOW” factor. Lyn Collison from Colour Monkey was the first to respond to my enquiry. We spoke on the phone and I booked her straight away for the following week. Lyn came to our home and was amazing! Her extensive knowledge of colour and her natural flare for interior design was exactly what I was looking for. She walked through our home, room by room, adding notes as she went. We then discussed what I wanted and Lyn had excellent ideas for adding the right colours to some walls and suggested some spectacular furniture pieces to complement our lounge room. I liked the fact that I could pay by the hour so Lyn could do as little or as much as I needed. Even though she was here for about 2 and a half hours, I feel Lyn went above and beyond my expectations and was in contact with me via email for up to 2 weeks after our visit, still giving me ideas and her professional opinions! I am very grateful for what she suggested for our home and we have been having lots of fun shopping and organising for the changes to take place. I highly recommend Colour Monkey for anyone who is looking to add colour to their home or for some interior design ideas. Lyn Collison was very professional, lovely to deal with and went far above and beyond my expectations. Kind Regards, Dana Denz