Whole house on "brilliant white", "timeless" or other?

[Penguinotterfoxbadger]

Dp and I are about to do up a traditional victorian terraced house. Our plan is to put in stripped wood floor boards and then paint the whole lot white. We are neither of us exactly creative types and tbh we want a safe option which will look classy but minimise the risk of f*cking the whole thing up.

So, should we go with brilliant white? or will this end up looking cold and clinical? If so, should we go with something Iike dulux timeless or something else?

Nb - the house is for us to live in rather than rent/sell. We don't have much furniture yet but I like the idea of a blue/grey sofa and flower patterned curtains (that's about as far as my planning has got!)

Any advice appreciated - I am really not good at this!

[MoonlightandRoses]

Hmm - think I'd step away from brilliant white for anything other than ceilings. As it's a Victorian, you could try something like Dulux Ivory White for the wood-work and then, for the walls, if you want to start of neutral - look for something that you can play around with 'shades' of. So one colour, but different levels of colour depth.

You could do the palest level in the hall, stairs & landing, and then the mid and deep variants in the other rooms depending on light. This is possible with whites as well as any other colour.

For example (and it might not suit your taste/house, but to give an idea) you could go for Bone China Blue Pale in the hall, but Deep in the sitting room and mid in the kitchen and so on.

Also, it's worth remembering that, if you go to a decent independent paint shop (so not the large DIYers) that they can mix the colour in fairly much any finish/company - when we're getting the professionals in I tend to buy Colortrend as I find it tricky but the paint is really long-lasting, but when we're doing it ourselves I get the shop to mix up in Dulux Trade, irrespective of which company has the colour I want.

For finishes, matt(walls) and eggshell (wood) is best at flattening out slightly dodgy surfaces, but more difficult to keep clean.

Worst case is you need to re-paint!

[bohoec]

We've got a lot of dulux authentic origins field mouse in our house. Not as dark as it looks online, and has more depth than timeless.

[Kittykatmacbill]

We have always painted our house, excluding the livingroom (always grey) and our bedroom (currently f&b elephant breath), brilliant white.
We love it bounces the light around and easy to touch up when the tesco man hits the wall. We have done this in a 30s semi, Victorian tenement and now a Georgian flat.

[piggychops]

I like Timeless. It's great for brightening rooms but not too stark.

[burnishedsilver]

Brilliant white is less forgiving than a colour on uneven or badly plastered walls. While it looks well its hard to pull off.

[Penguinotterfoxbadger]

Thanks for the advice guys!

[fiorentina]

We have a victorian house with Timeless in several rooms. Less stark then brilliant white but clean and fresh.

[HiawathaDidntBotherTooMuch]

Our previous house was Victorian. Most of it was painted in Parchment by Crown. It was lovely. Got lots of compliments.

Current house us Edwardian. Big rooms, high ceilings. We have three rooms painted in Laura Ashley Twine. It's great. Lots of depth, but classy. I will use it again and again.

[minipie]

Not Brilliant White.

If you want plain white, use Trade White - basically it's just white without the added brighteners (that can look cold) that are in Brilliant White.

Personally though I would go for something like Timeless, Cotton White, White Chalk or one of those other "nearly white" colours. But paint the woodwork Trade White.

[mabelbabel]

Timeless is brilliant. With eggshell woodwork in pbw.

[Penguinotterfoxbadger]

Thanks again for the advice - I think I will indeed "step away from the pbw" after hearing all that.

Assuming that the walls will be painted timeless or similar, would you do the woodwork in pbw or trade white? I hadn't realised there was much of a difference (thought trade white was just cheaper) but what minipie said made sense...

[RandomHouseRules]

We have timeless throughout our Victorian terrace and have had since we moved in 6yrs ago. I am now getting to the point where I am feeling like we need more colour and that I have more of an idea of what would work in different spaces, so we may start adding more colour this year. Crazeeeee

[RandomHouseRules]

Woodwork is pbw btw and our room kitchen units are a lovely mid brown. The entire house was bright green when we moved it. Still makes me shudder to think about it. And I normally like green!

[Penguinotterfoxbadger]

Yes, I suspect we may want more colour after a few years but I just don't want to be stressing about paint colours when we first move in.. There are plenty of other things filling my stress quota right now!

[Doilooklikeatourist]

We have trade white all over our dining room , kitchen and other dining room [ as its known ]
It looks lovely , but its an old farmhouse with stone walls and red clay floor tiles
lots of pictures on the wall , thick rugs on the floor , but no curtains
white ceilings [ they were dark brown ...shudder ]

[rockybalboa]

My house is Victorian terraced with stripped pine floorboards and we have brilliant white throughout. We have messed with 'other' whites before and not been especially successful. Brilliant white really brightened the whole house and didn't make it look at all clinical.

[WhatsGoingOnEh]

My last house was a Victorian terrace and we did brilliant white everywhere, with stripped-pine woodwork, stairs and floors. It looked amazing - really arty.

Nostalgic sigh.

We're in a 70s semi now. It's currently magnolia. (Are all these Timeless colours just renamed magnolias?) I'm going to do brilliant white everywhere. It just looks so fresh and clean, like an art gallery.

[deraila]

i have pbw downstairs with wood flooring. it actually varies a great deal in different lights. it softens up with furniture and bits and bobs in it but looks modern and never too creamy/ magnolia. i love it.

[Isthiscorrect]

I'm very interested in this thread as I was considering White throughout the whole house rather than magnolia. But what does pbw mean please? And what is the opinion of gloss v eggshell for doors and skirting? Tia.

[deraila]

PBW= pure brilliant white.

[modestyb]

Eggshell or satinwood for wood work, less shiny.

I painted our bedroom in Timeless, but I wish I had used a less creamy white, I'm not that keen on it. I think I should have used F&B strong white instead. Timeless looks great in the en suite bathroom though, oddly. Something to do with the light maybe.

[inconceivableme]

Our house isn't Victorian but we have Timeless (Endurance, the washable paint) in our hallway, stairs and landing. It looks good and is very fresh but is also a lot creamer than I anticipated. We did the woodwork in Dulux Trade Satinwood. It's pricey but is quality stuff and a little goes a long way. It's not overly white.

[FamiliesShareGerms]

I love timeless - every house we have lived in has ended up with at least one room painted in it

[Finola1step]

We had the same issue when moving into our house two years ago. I went with cotton white in the communal areas and natural calico in the bedrooms. With white cotton satinwood on the woodwork.

I have now started to move away and use more colour (F&B Tunsgate Green in one bedroom, Dulux jade white in downstairs loo). But the white cotton and natural calico have worked well as good base colours while we hum and ha about what look to go for.

[Finola1step]

Oh buy PBW on ceilings