Inspire me ... Moving in to totally magnolia house

[Jaynebxl]

While we are hanging around waiting to move I'm occupying my mind by thinking of ways we can de-magnolify the new place. In particular I'm thinking of the children's bedrooms and ours, the dining room, the lounge and the playroom to start with. I wondered if you could inspire me by telling me some colours you've used / been impressed with that have really worked well.

What colours are in your belongings, e.g. Sofa, chairs, cushions, vases, photo frames, bedding, any curtains you're moving in with, your children's duvet cover and toy storage, is any wooden furniture you have dark, light or painted?

Can I give a wee bit of advice?

Live in it for a couple of months.

We have moved to two magnolia houses. The first, I slapped paint on the walls as soon as we moved. Lovely colours, but not right for the rooms IYSWIM.

This house, I waited and learnt where the light hit and shadows fell before choosing paint - and I was happy first time round.

(Can I recommend B&Q Soft Truffle? I've just used it on an accent wall and it's lush - purplely brown in one light, mid brown in another but not too dark.)

Doris you are so right. We do intend to live there a bit before we do anything much. I just like to imagine ahead!

Minoan we are going to have a lovely kitchen diner and we will have wooden bookcases, a lovely wooden dining table and manky old wooden dining chairs. I'm planning to find a colour that would work in the dining room, paint the walls and then paint the chairs gloss in some colour that matches. For the lounge we currently have two blue sofas but will buy new once we live in it a bit and decide what we want out of our new lounge furniture and what colour we want.

Most of our other furniture is wooden.

If you instinctively choose wooden/ natural furniture does this suggest that you could also choose your colour palette from nature?

i like this pear palette

I'm just replastering my new house at present and as the rooms flow into each other I'm focusing on natural tones so although they will all be different colours the cross over between spaces wont jar. If you see what I mean.

I agree with watching the light at different times of day.

I'm also a really big fan of wipeable paint in high traffic areas. Its worth every extra penny to be able to baby wipe the walls and it look like you've repainted.

Are you on pinterest? I've just started and its good for saving every image I see that I like. Without actually consciously choosing colours when I go through my room boards its narrowed down to a few possibilities.

Wouldn't suggest gloss for chairs - it's too shiny and shows every mark

How about an eggshell or satin instead - softer look, but marks are not as obvious. Drawback is maybe a small range of colours though - although you could use the Dulux mix range?

Love the pear palette. I do like natural colours but I also like a good splash of colour. Loving teal and duck egg and a bit of pink at the moment, but not necessarily all together!

An thanks for the tip about gloss Doris.

Our second bedroom is magnolia. But we painted the build in wardrobes a gorgeous cornflower blue, white white details. The paintwork on the skirting and the windowsills etc is gloss white. There is a sort of dado rail going 120cm from the floor, and that is also cornflower blue, and with blue curtains, the room is an oasis of calm.

Buttermilk was utterly gorgeous in the kitchen.

Cornflower blue sounds lovely.

We have dulux jade white with blonde wood in dining room, it looks light blue to me, I like it. Also quite like primrose yellow colours with white trim in rooms with wood, particularly if it's dark wood or painted wood.

I do like greens too but I have always found it difficult to colour match or co-ordinate greens, I reckon you can't ever clash with blues.

You need this website www.houzz.com]

Hours of procrastination! :)

Oo thanks for that. Some rather posh rooms there!