Colour ideas
Choosing a colour you will still like in three years.
We have not put a gallery of shade swatches here, because a swatch on a screen tells you almost nothing about how that colour will behave on your wall. This is the method we use with customers instead.
Six things that decide it
What actually determines whether a colour works.
Look at the light before the colour
A north-facing room gets cool, even light all day and will pull a shade greyer than the card suggests. A west-facing room turns warm and orange in the evening. The same paint genuinely looks like two different colours in those rooms.
Small rooms do not automatically need white
Light shades reflect more and can make a small room feel larger, but a small room in a deep, warm colour can feel deliberate and comfortable rather than cramped. What actually makes a room feel small is a busy scheme with nowhere for the eye to rest.
Choose the sheen as carefully as the shade
Matt hides an uneven wall and looks calm, but marks easily. Higher sheen wipes clean and reflects light, but shows every ripple in the plaster. In a hallway or a child's room the sheen matters more than the colour.
Test on the wall, never on the card
Shade cards are printed, not painted, and phone screens are worse. Put a sample on the actual wall, look at it in the morning, in the evening and under your own lights, and live with it for a day before deciding.
Look at it next to what stays
Your floor, your sofa and your curtains are not changing. Hold the sample against them. A shade that looks perfect on a bare wall can fight with a warm wooden floor.
One dominant colour per room
Pick one shade to lead, one to support it and one accent at most. Rooms that feel unresolved usually have three or four colours all competing to be the main event.
Room by room
What to watch for in each space.
- Living room
- Gets the most daylight and the most scrutiny. Test at both ends, a long room is rarely lit evenly.
- Bedroom
- You mostly see it in artificial light and early morning. Judge samples at those times, not at midday.
- Kitchen
- Steam, grease and frequent wiping. Washability matters more than the exact shade.
- Bathroom
- Humidity and ventilation drive the specification. The right product matters more than the colour here.
- Hallway and stairs
- The highest-contact surfaces in the house. Choose something that can be cleaned and touched up.
- Exterior
- Sun fades colour and exposure drives the system. Deep shades on a west-facing wall lose their intensity fastest.
Bring us the room, not the shade card.
Colour consultation is part of the free inspection. We look at the light, the space and what stays in it, narrow the options down, and put samples on your wall so you can decide properly.
- We call you back the same day to get a picture of the property and the surfaces.
- We agree a time and come out for the free inspection.
- You get the written scope and itemised quotation.
- Nothing starts until you approve it.