Decorating whole house how am I going to get "colour flow" right - need wisdom of Mumsnet

[Anabundanceof]

DH and I have been lucky enough to buy house of our dreams and renovate it completely. We are getting near decorating stage. I am overwhelmed by colour choices and cant work out how to flow it. Its a double fronted south facing house. We prefer a blue/green palette. The hall is dark and has brown encaustic tiles. I don't like the trend for grey or beige nor do I like "hotel" bathrooms. It has two reception rooms, four beds bathroom and shower room. I was thinking Dulux timeless as main colour in hall, with trade white eggshell for wood work, DH green verditer for smaller reception room, timeless for larger reception room will be family room. but apart from that lost. Great interior designers of mumsnet please help

I have never thought about colour throughout a house in this way, I've always chosen colour for a specific room to fit with furnishings, light in the room, etc. There is coherence though and there are no jarring colours because we have quite a lot of neutrals and pale colours, without painting everywhere with the same colour.

Therefore my suggestion would be to paint the areas you can decide on and see what you think once they are done - we've all probably had a decorating disaster where sonething just hasn't looked and felt right despite us being convinced we had found the perfect colour. Then move on to the other rooms. You've got a lot to decorate if you are going to do all the rooms, which can be overwhelming to deal with in one hit.

I think that's what I'll do - plan so far

Small reception room teal
Family room off white
Main bedroom teal
DS room white
Study pale grey
Guest room primrose

We have just done a whole house renovation and we paid for a colour consultant to come and do a plan for us. I was completely overwhelmed as well with all of the choices and had to make loads of decisions on major things like the roof tile etc. Anyway a friend had used them and their house looked amazing. She came for 2hours and it cost £175 - we went through every room in the house and she helped us decide on colours (they are all F&B colours but we got some mixed). She really helped with the flow of the rooms and gave us lots of ideas on styling them. We got a report emailed about a week later with the amounts of paints and colours and finishes. It has meant we havent bought a tester pot at all and no long conversations about which colour to buy. It really helped us go past what we would usually choose and the house looks fantastic (two rooms left to do) so well worth the money!

The Ideal Home Show is on this week, starts Friday. Great for ideas, I've been a few times. As well as having a lovely day out, ended up buying some gadgets!

Workingmum where did you get your colour consultant from? I like the idea of that. I am in the same position although a bit earlier in the process as the building work hasn't started yet and I am already feeling overwhelmed!

Where abouts are you based? I know ours travels - she works at farrow and ball some of the time and then has her own interiors company the rest but is based around F&B colours. F&b also do a similar service but it is twice the price.

I'm in West London workingmum.

workingmum I'd be interested in that info too - I am north London and also have an entire house to try and paint!

www.farrow-ball.com/colour-consultancy/content/fcp-content

She is based in harrogate - I know she has done some jobs further south - I think you can contact her on www.houzz.com/uk/pro/kate-osborne/kate-osborne-interiors

Alternatively F&B do a similar service but I think it is more expensive.

It was fantastic and really helped us with the colours. We ended up choosing things we would never have gone for and they look great. Plus no tester pots!

That's exactly what I need. I want to be braver in my colour choices but need someone with a better eye than me to make sure it works. London might be a bit far but maybe she could suggest someone down this way. Based on the link cheeky chip posted she is half the price of F&B.

Iloovecheese I was thinking the same thing. I'm crap at picking colours and having trouble looking at the house as a whole!

Worth a shot. She did an amazing job and had some great ideas about changing things that were already in the house. Will post some pictures -

The colour wheel thing is out colours for the whole house.

When I planned the colour scheme for our house I had a mood board. It was a few photos that had colours I liked eg the ones attached. It made a huge difference when I was dithering, it's so easy to get overwhelmed with choice.

Really lovely workingmum. That deep grey is fab and I love the panelling on the stairs too. AnnieLewis, let me know if you find a London person and I'll do the same.

Thanks Ilovecheese. We would never have gone for it normally. See if you can find out the name of the person at your local f&b branch- they might have their own company too?

Good idea. We might bypass some of the costs that way. Although I think I had 15 testers for the last room we did so a colour consultant could well end up cheaper!