Testing, Testing: Playing With Retro Colours

Lately my life looks like this: get up, take the kids to school, work on the new house until 3.30, collect the kids, get on the homework/after school clubs/tea/bath/bed merry-go-round, eat, collapse. I'm not moaning, I am glad I can spend this time at the house as I know that once we move in work will slow down, but today brought an unexpected respite from this routine as Bella is home from school ill (although not that ill, really, as it turns out...) and so I have some precious time to blog.

As you probably know, we are staying with my parents while we do some work on the house we recently bought, and we are now at the decorating stage. It was our intention to decorate three bedrooms (Bella's, Angus's and ours) and the living room before we moved in, and I'm very happy to say we've done that, bar the odd job here and there and the installation of a wood burning stove in a couple of weeks. My life seems to revolve around paint colours lately and I have to say I have found choosing these colours quite tricky and this has surprised me. I love decorating and interior design, and choosing, and colour! But I think it's the thought of trying to choose paint for a house that we've not yet lived in that unnerves me. How do I know how a room feels, what kind of light it gets, before moving in?  

These are the colour palates we've been drawn towards:

Our new home was built in 1968 and we've been conscious of that as we've looked at tester cards, aiming for tones that felt in keeping with the era of the house. Retro colours, I suppose. I realised the other day that many of these colours are evident in one of my favourite prints, the Orla Kiely Multi Stem print pattern - this photo is a close up of my address book.

Actually, John and I had a discussion about Orla the other night; I've loved her work ever since I bought a tiny green handbag by her with pears on it from Selfridges in Manchester in 2003, back when tiny handbags were fashionable and I had the disposable income for such things, and we have a few of her lovely products, homewares mainly. But I worry that the brand might be changing, like Cath Kidston did. Remember how, ten years ago, Cath Kidston stuff was lovely? All faded floral prints, light, airy and vintagey, so different to their newer patterns. Well, you see Orla designs absolutely everywhere now, even on bins! I hope I'm not going to go off her. But I argued that, however her brand changes, I will always love the multi stem print and I would go so far as to say that it's iconic now. I'd like a wall papered in it. John says no. We'll see.

Anyway, the colours. John became obsessed with the notion of an orange wall somewhere in the house, a kind of burnt rust colour. We tried a few. They were awful and will remain in their tester pots.

Then we looked at greens. Mossy, olive greens, faded and muted, a bit drab even. I love all these colours but when it came to it they were, for a multitude of reasons, discounted.

Then the yellows. We really wanted mustard yellow somewhere in the dining room. Sadly, the colour clashes horribly with the nasty orangey fake pine laminate that currently sits in that room and we can't afford to change the floor now. But we both really want a yellow wall or two someday. Just not now.

The light blue is Bella's fault. She has insisted on a light blue wall in her bedroom from day one and we were happy to oblige, just grateful we have a daughter who likes colours other than pink. I'll show you lots of photos when we're in and there's something to look at other than the blue wall. 

And then dark blue. I never really thought about dark blue but, as we stood staring at the rainbow of colours in front of us, my hand kept wavering over these deep blues. I kept thinking how nice our white bed stead would look against it.

In the end we chose Princeton Blue for our bedroom and I love it more every time I see it.

Then along came the neutrals. The beautiful soothing, restful, warm, airy neutrals. Don't worry about the oranges, greens and yellows, they said. Choose us. We're stress free and easy on the eye. 

To be honest, it was a relief once we'd decided neutral was the way to go. No pressure to make a bold colour choice. Nice and easy. We bought four tester pots and chose New York City Winter for the living room which is a large room and one we wanted to feel cosy but airy all at once, and used a similar shade in all the upstairs bedrooms.

Those eight holes above the fireplace are from where the previous owners had their tv mounted on the chimney breast (heathens!) and they've since been filled and painted over. And the mess of bricks at the bottom will be sorted when we get the stove fitted.

It's a tricky room as it has a wide west facing window and a lot of bright direct sunlight, but also some dark corners. Neutral works here; it's a kind of putty colour, a pale grey with a bit of brown and beige in it, and it will complement our furniture when we move in.

And then there is this colour combination, which I am currently obsessed with. I just adore that bright green at the moment, especially with pink, black and white, and I'll do a whole post about it soon.

I'm sorry I don't have prettier photos for you all right now. I'm doing my best here with limited means and not a lot of energy. I just can't wait to get in and make it all look lovely!

These tester pots are by no means a waste of money - I'll use all of them in various crafty projects. I recently used one of the mustard yellows to add some colour to the end of this pole on my wall hanging.

One last thing - this is not a sponsored post. I've provided links to Valspar paints simply because B&Q, our nearest DIY store, stocks them and that's where I've been shopping. Incidentally, I've been really impressed with their paint, as have I with Crown (bought because it was on offer) and Dulux (bought because we wanted their one-coat white on the living room ceiling) which we've also used. And B&Q's own brand Colours range is pretty good too.

Edited to add: And I totally forgot to say THANK YOU for all your generous comments about my shawl. So rude of me, I am sorry. My head is all over the place. But thank you. xx