I’m sitting in an “Apartment for an Older Man” and feeling right at home. While the single owner-occupant may be a tad more venerable than me, his defiantly multi-hued nest suggests we are birds of a feather.

Occupying a corner of the second floor in a 1920s building in Sydney’s Elizabeth Bay, the airy lair is entered via a capacious vestibule entirely painted a deep, flat green reminiscent of a school blackboard. A transition from the dour art deco hallway, it announces an interior that is vibrantly alive.