Should I paint my whole house white?

[ATouchOfStuffing]

I am building a new house and although I had some strong interior ideas I feel a bit lost at the moment! I think I have looked at too much on line and got a bit confused...please help! It is such a great thing to be able to do, but I think I am over thinking minutiae like whether door knobs and window latches need to match. Antique brass or black? Argh!

Anyway, I wanted to do everything white so that I could just change curtains/cushions or glassware if I wanted to change the look/style and also so that it would be easy to re-paint and touch up. Obviously it is bright and everything goes with it which is the main benefit.

Now I am starting to get confused between liking farmhouse/cottage/nordic and even moroccan styles and finding myself wondering whether to go for greys and blues and lavender shades instead of all one colour... Or maybe colours upstairs for bedrooms and white downstairs? I just worry I will get a bit bored of it and it will look like a box, being a new build and all!

Flooring will be a warm medium dark reddish wood downstairs and a simple natural light beige carpet upstairs. Should I tile the laundry room or leave it as the same wood as it is downstairs?

Feeling a bit overwhelmed all of a sudden - thank you in advance!

I know how you feel! We're refurbishing and extending our cottage and I had definite ideas about the look and colours I wanted, then when the reality of it actually happening struck.... I got all

So, I have decided to paint all the rooms white. I know that I'll change it in time, but for now it gives me one less thing to worry about and I know that it will look OK.

Perhaps as yours is newbuild and presumably alot lighter than our cottage you could go for one colour still, but something a bit more daring like a dark cream!!

I live a 300 year cottage which we have extended and completely renovated. However once you are inside it could be a brand new house (other than the living room which is our only remaining "cottagey" room!) The entire house is Timeless white inside - walls anyway, woodwork in brilliant white, all knobs and window furniture are BLACK (there is no other colour!!!!!!).

Tile the laundry room, no question at all. Ours also has our back door in it. Also tile your porch, if you have one separate from your main hallway. Your main entrances will suffer if you go straight onto wood, especially if you have children and/or a dog. We also have an oak (mid colour) flooring for most of our downstairs and the same beige carpet through living room and all upstairs..... Tile your bathroom floors too. That said, our downstairs shower is wood floor, but it is hardly ever used as anything other than the downstairs loo. But it doesn't like to get wet (as we found out when our tap leaked.....)

Sorry, I'm probably sounding rather bossy I realise, but having done this and been through the agony of making all the decisions, I really am pleased with how it all turned out!

Oh thank you guys! Just sharing it has made my shoulders a bit lighter!
I was considering a cream...but DARK cream ... I still think things go better with white and cream makes some colours look dull. But yes, if I find it cold then I think cream will be the way forward :)

Thank you Anon - agonising over window locks started when I found my idea kitchen tap which is obviously because I am a genius at finding things you cannot buy in UK an antique brass pull down tap from America. I got a bit funny thinking the tap on the kitchen sink by the window would be a different colour to the latch. Sounds completely anal now! I then went off on a bit of an antique brass search and found some door knobs that look like a round beehive that I like...you can see where I started to get a bit .

I would love to tile the porch and laundry room and bathrooms. I am trying to find extra budget to do the upstairs bathroom and downstairs loo. Out of interest what colours did you go for with your white? I do like the traditional black and white but also like the old Victorian styles. Not sure I can stretch to Fired Earth but they have the kind of thing I like (obviously!)

Yes we have a back door onto our laundry room too.
Also while you are here; have put a laundry chute in from 4th bedroom but not convinced I need it and it would restrict anything underneath it. I thought it was the best idea EVER when I came up with it as imagined not wanting to lug sheets downstairs (currently have an upstairs laundry which makes it a lot easier but noisy). Starting to worry about DD (18mo) deciding to crawl in it although it is far more likely she will be posting cars into it Do either of you have one or do you think it will be worth it?

We have lots of white, i don't regret it. Its a very good base colour for adding colour too.

I have repainted, in white, in high traffic areas like up the stairs, with wipeable paint. Fantastic stuff. Five minutes with a baby wipe and it looks like its had a touch up coat of paint!

We had three rooms previously in the Farrow and Ball "Cream" which is what I would call a dark cream. It was "ok" but it was a bit limiting to be honest.. and to be honest it got on my nerves after a while. I balked at the cost and also F&B paints take about 4 coats to go on!!! So it costs EVEN MORE! Nightmare. Do try Timeless (Dulux) or one of their similar off whites, I was a bit nervous about doing all white but my decorator (also my friend!) assured me we would like the result. I don't like it, I LOVE IT! She says that Timeless is one of the paint colours she is asked to use most of all.

We have a chrome tap right next to our black window latches etc, if that is any consolation to you! You don't have to spend much on tiling, in fact our tiles were dead cheap. We have a very small shower room and a smallish bathroom and we went with a slightly brownish grey for the floors. Sounds a bit non I know, but actually it is really nice. Our bath and shower surrounds are pure white and again weren't expensive.

We saw tiles we liked at our local building suppliers, but actually found cheaper and exactly what we wanted, bizarrely, at our very expensive local tile specialist shop!! Luckily for us they stock a few budget ranges so we just asked to see their cheap end of the range and they were perfect! We have the classic old browny red bog standard flat tile in our porch and boot/utility room. It gets such a battering in those areas - kids, dog, mud, water etc etc that expensive tiles would have been ruined and ended up all marked etc.

Good luck! How exciting for you to build your own home!

Dulux Egyptian cotton might be the thing for you...

I love the idea of a laundry chute and am planning to do it - will be very disappointed if it doesnt save me many hours a week!!
Also planning to tile all of downstairs apart from the lounge which will be carpet and the dining room which has old parque (dont really like it but seems wrong to remove it). I want large flagstone type flooring for hall, kitchen, garden room, laundry, boot room. Cant decide if grey will look too...grey and dont like fired earth prices, but cant find anything else.

Anon - had a look at Timeless and think it may be a winner! Glad to hear about F&B as the cost alone was a big chunk of budget. Of course I look at Houzz and all they talk about is Benjamin Moore, which obviously you can't get in UK unless you import so paint was going to be another panic post later on

I have seen wall tiles I like and been assured by the builders that if I confirm I will be tiling a certain amount I will get much more than the measly 10% they offered when I did my old kitchen. I like the idea of the bath being tiled in (have a free standing Victorian at the moment and DD has begun pouring cups of water over the side onto the white painted floorboards = unhappy floor/kitchen ceiling) and using the space under the bath for a small cupboard if possible. Waffle waffle! I need to look into bathroom floor tiles as am a bit wary of them becoming slippery and a bit lethal. Do yours have a texture? I think they sell certain bathroom floor ones usually don't they?

Oooo and YY to the wipeable paint! I love going around with baby wipes (well, I say LOVE... I ALWAYS is prob more like it).

Our floor tiles are smooth but dulled finish. Wall ones are smooth and slightly more shiny. I wanted a really crisp look, and the light reflects funny off those wobbly finish tiles (IMHO!). Our floor tiles are not at all slippery - that was precisely one of our questions at the tile shop. Good point to check - I had completely forgotten that we had asked about that!

F&B paints are heinous, as you need so damned much of the stuff. My decorator lady friend absolutely hates working with it, says that she has to charge a lot more to use it, people don't really understand but she says it is very slow to work with, takes ages longer to do the same area AND needs more coats.

As for the Dulux paints, her other big tip was that if at all possible, get the Trade Paints made up for you in your colour of choice. She says it is more expensive, or seems to be, than the "regular" Dulux from Homebase or wherever, but she says that the Trade paints can then be slightly watered down and they go on much better and much faster, and also once you work it out, the more expensive tins work out cheaper when doing large areas.......

Yes funnily enough I remember my mum doing this as she couldn't find the exact pale yellow she wanted. I was wondering if people just go in with the FB samples and get them made up cheaper just the other day!

I think I will go with the Timeless white suggestion though, thanks again. I know exactly what you mean about the light on the wobbly tiles. I feel the same way.

I am now firmly back on terra firma with my ideas. I just need to find a kitchen now!

I would definitely advise painting all white in a new house. It will take a good 3 coats to cover new walls anyway and you will want to kill the dust as much as possible before you move it.
I got 2 coats all over, with 3 on the ceilings. Then over this past 3 year I have worked my way around each room decorating it.
It's impossible to pick colours properly for a house unless you've lived on it for a while, the ideas you have in your head change once the house is finished.
Good luck! It's worth all the planning and stress, building our own home was one of the best things we've ever done

Yay! More hope! Thank you Queen Maeve.
I must stop buying things for it already. Only just chosen the builder and I'm off looking at things for my new craft station storage...tut.

Laundry chutes are fantastic. Make sure there are doors/flaps that can be locked at both ends and you will never regret installing one. You can use industrial strength magnetic snaps or a bolt or even a lock with key.

WOW, guineadogpony, don't know what you said, but managing to get your post in a thread about painting your house white deleted for breach of guidelines has to be setting a whole new standard!!!!