Bright coloured decor

[DavetheCat2001]

My style/taste is quite bright, colourful and bold. I like lots of pops of colour and mixing contemporary with a more retro style.

We bought a large 4 bed Edwardian house last summer that needs everything doing to it. We managed to finish the front reception room just before Xmas (thank god as the rest of the house has nowhere decent for guests/family to sit).

I have lots of plans bubbling in my head for the rest of the house, but it's going to be a very long term project as we have run out of money already and so are doing a lot of it ourselves.

Just wondered if anyone else here shares my love of colour/retro/contemporary/eclectic style and if anyone has any inspiration/pics to share..I'd love to see them!

We're just starting a whole house restoration of our Edwardian house (I'm blogging it so I don't forget how it is now!) First room will be finished next week (the bathroom) and we're painting it in Little Greene Adventurer. The living room is going to be LG Garden, with one wall in LG Richmond Guinevere wallpaper. So yes, I'm right there with you on eclectic and colourful! I'll send you a pic of the bathroom when it's done, or can PM you a link to the blog if you just want to see what we're up to.

Have a look at this artist's Insta. There's the odd photo of her house dotted here and there. Very bold!

instagram.com/pilfered?igshid=aqfipifhnixq

Would love to see pics @RestorationInsanity .. sounds very similar to what we are doing here!

Will also check out those insta pics @Afterallthistime30 .. def my kinda thing!

Here is what we have done with the front reception room.. Little Greene Theatre Red and White Tie F&B.

Back reception room/kids room is F&B Dutch Orange and W.Tie again.

That looks lovely @DavetheCat2001! So inspiring to see someone do something beautiful and individual in their home. I just couldn't get excited about painting every wall in a house this scale a version of white or grey. I love colour and can't wait to feel cheered/cosy/a sense of drama when so go into each room. Love the red and the orange. Am thinking of painting the side door in LG Mister David or Yellow Pink. It faces North and is in the passage between the house and the garage so will be nice to have something bright and cheery! I'll share some pics of the bathroom when it's done. Can't wait to have finally made a start.

How many bedrooms do you have @RestorationInsanity ?

What is the current layout, and what are your plans?

Ours needs everything doing.., we moved in last June and so far have had it re-wired, lead pipes replaced with plastic, new boiler and the roof repaired.

All the money we had saved has gone, so doing a lot ourselves and now have to save up again.

Luckily OH is pretty handy!

Just a few more pics of our front room as absolutely love it!

Colour is awesome. My soul dies a bit every time I see a house which is so monochrome you can't work out whether they've taken photos on a black and white setting. Who wants to live in the pages of a Next catalogue?

When we moved in here, everything was magnolia. All the walls, all the ceilings. So soul destroyingly drab, unimaginative and downright boring. Over the years we've painted and changed things around. Yes there are neutrals and I have stuck to white/grey in the bathroom and kitchen because who avocado bathroom suites are definitely a thing of the 80s. But we have a turquoise glass splashback in the kitchen, and I've just painted one of the (admittedly fairly small) utility room walls bright pink.

Furnishings have loads of colour too, and I'm a huge fan of second hand, handmade or upcycled. I don't want my house to be the same as everyone else's.

Your red wall is fabulous, OP.

We've got four bedrooms currently, and will be adding a further two in the loft. We're very lucky that the house has almost all the original features intact (stained glass, cornicing and skirtings, we've even got the servants bells in and still operational, no servant though sadly!) Ours is also a mammoth project. The current kitchen and downstairs loo was a 1970s add on so we're totally redoing that with a new pitched roof, adding a bit extra on the side for a proper utility, and putting the kitchen back in the breakfast room and knocking that through to what is currently the kitchen! Confusing, I know. Current floorplans etc are on my blog www.madeiracottagelife.com.

So far we've had a new central heating system put in, which included having the lead water main replaced. Repaired the stained glass, opened up and restored a couple of fireplaces and made some headway in the garden. It was totally overgrown and full of half dead trees etc, so we've currently made it look worse, but will be making it look better!

Our builders are both originally carpenters so alongside the bathroom at the moment they have turned our garage into a workshop to make us new double glazed timber casements. The downstairs is still all single glazed, and upstairs is aluminium double glazed units in the original wood frames. This way we can be warm, with beautiful wooden (mostly original windows).

Have you got a large budget set aside?

We have found in the works we have done so far as you dig you find more and more that needs attention!

The joys if an old house!

@PineappleDanish I am a bit fan of second hand and up cycled too!

I like mid century modern furniture a lot as it fits it well with both an older property and a more modern interior.

@Davethecate2001 I strongly recommend you google Kit Kemp. If you are in London you can also go and visit her hotels (firmdale). She is the most amazing designer - full of colour, texture, nothing grey, nothing matchy.

We fell in love with her style after staying in one of her hotels and bought her books. We have a fairly big 1911 house that we renovated completely and used her as an inspiration

Thanks @pallisers..I shall look her up now

I adore colour - I live in 1980 built townhouse (3 levels). It's a lovely house to live it, but no special features & very plainly decorated - I'm slowly changing it myself.

I get drawn to quite bold colour but I'm not much of a designer so learning as I go. Loving the look of Kit Kemps style.

I've painted my bedroom in F&B peignoir which is fairly muted but lovely in bedroom- restful. I've 2m of Pax - I was intending on putting 4 mirrors on each door but haven't sourced reasonably priced mirrors yet.

I've a mid century dresser that someone has done a rough grey paint job on. I plan to paint it gold - next job

Got home to the painted bathroom last night! Colour is absolutely gorgeous, so rich and dramatic. Can't wait for it to be totally finished!

Pics please!!! 😃

Will post one when I get home tonight. Might have a tiled shower wall then too! It is such a tiny bathroom as well, disproportionate for the rest of the house. We're putting the bath up in the loft bathroom instead so we'd have a better shower/storage in this room.

Just out of interest @RestorationInsanity , whereabouts intge country are you?

Greater London/Surrey border. You?

Sorry realised I ignored your question about budget. We knew the house would need full decorative restoration, new kitchen, new roof on old extension etc, but it is otherwise fairly sound so haven't uncovered many nasties yet. It was built by a builder for his daughter (the attached house was built for his son) so there is a lot of attention to detail and quality, which might not have been there otherwise. We didn't have to rewire for example as that was done in the past 20 years, so will probably just need a new consumer unit. We have enough to cover most of the work, but some of the more 'nice to have' things like all the built in alcove shelving, etc will be done more slowly as the garden, driveway, garage and so on also need work. It's never-ending isn't it! I'm happy to do the decoration more slowly though as it helps to see how things come together before making all those decisions, lighting, curtains/blinds etc.

We're in SE London..

We've already had a re-wire, new boiler, lead pipes replaced and the roof fixed (it was leaking when we moved in - building surveys are a complete waste of time and money IMO!).

That took a huge chunk of the money we had left over, and the remaining bit we spent on having the 2 front reception rooms knocked through with a new doorway, plastered and insulation laid under the wood floors, as we were warned by several neighbours that they found their front rooms very draughty as these houses have such a large void under the house. Money well spent as the front room is nice and warm with no draughts.

Saving up now to have the hallway replastered and then we can decorate that..it's awful at the moment as I stripped all the horrible anaglpta paper off months ago and it just looks terrible!

OH is quite handy and is going to knock out the dodgy bathroom they had put in downstairs (house was badly converted into 2 flats) and convert the front kitchen/recep room back to its original size/shape.

We will have a new kitchen ext built at some point in the future as the house has a horrible lean-to at the moment housing the (shit) kitchen, but that's a way off as will need to borrow more money for that which we can't do at the moment.

It's a long term project but our forever home so as you say, worth taking time over to make sure it is done right..also one of the beauties of doing everything from the bones upwards yourself..you know you are getting whet you want, done properly!

Here's the floorpan of our house..it just has so much space to play with

Terrible photos, found it hard to take them in the light in the bathroom this morning but here's a peek of the colour

Our layout is totally different to that @DavetheCat2001! Ours is more like a square, lounge to the right of the hall, breakfast room and kitchen behind the lounge off the hall, and dining room parallel to the kitchen at the end of the hall.

Love that colour @RestorationInsanity !

Thank you, so do we! I think our builder was a bit worried we might not like it but we have spent a lot of time deciding on even the smallest details so I felt confident! It's just so inviting and warm.

Couple of touchups to woodwork, new window not in as still waiting for glass, and the door is being hung tomorrow, but it's basically finished!