How to Decide on Decorating Themes?

[Ilovefluffysheep]

We've got a few rooms/areas in our house that need decorating, and I just don't know where to start!! I kind of get something in my head, then go off it. Struggling a bit for inspiration.

We're having a garage conversion done which will be a dining room, so that needs completely decorating from scratch. Hall stairs and landing need doing, and a small room which was the study (were changing one of the spare bedrooms into a study/music/craft room) so will hold random stuff like coats, and possibly an American style fridge freezer that's currently out in the garage.

I do like grey, I liked it before it became the in thing, so trying to get away from that a bit and have a bit of colour, although I don't mind having grey as an alternate to a feature wall for example (yes I quite like them, I know some people don't). I like navy, have one kitchen wall in Dulux Saphhire Salute. Other walls are currently white (whole house was white as it's a new build) but think I'm going to get Chic Shadow to go with the navy. It's other rooms I'm stuck on, as don't really want all the same everywhere!

Where to people go to get inspiration? I've tried googling but not had much luck!

Instead of thinking of colours first, I think it can be helpful to think of what you want the room to feel like.

For example, I wanted my living room to feel calm, relaxed and airy, so I painted the walls a soft white, put in an oak floor, scandi-style furniture, lots of houseplants and got a teal sofa.

For my kitchen I wanted that to feel warm and cosy, so went for cream units and painted the walls a (classy 🙈) shade of pink.

None of my colour choices actually reflect my favourite colour, which is green, but they do go with the mood I want!

I find Instagram quite good for inspiration. If you look for hashtags of paint or wallpaper manufacturers (e.g. Dulux, Farrow and Ball, Graham & Brown) you can find some interesting stuff. It takes some scrolling through, but I find the hashtags much better for seeing what real people are doing than the carefully curated accounts of the actual companies that produce this stuff 😂

Thank you, some good ideas there. I'm not on instagram, so won't be able to look on there (think I would lose hours to it if I joined up, so it's a deliberate decision not to!).

Do you have Pinterest?
I use that for decorating ideas. If you have a colour in mind, use that as your search option and then you can save bits and pieces that you like, and build up a kind of a mood board. It helped me design my kitchen and I’m currently gathering ideas for when we do the living room next year.

I'm renovating a house and I was getting completely demoralised by the need to choose so many paint colours! What helped in the end was my decorator's advice. I've got nutmeg white in my hall stairs and landing, and it's a lovely neutral but warm colour. I've put a lot of personality into the bedrooms, based on what the kids and I wanted, so she recommended keeping the downstairs quite neutral
I find magazines the most helpful inspiration. And the paint guides like dulux! I've got teal tension in my bedroom and love it.

I must admit, I really like teal tension, so I think that or similar will appear somewhere!!

I think because the whole house is white i'm just trying to inject a bit of colour. I'm particularly stuck on halls stairs and landing though, just don't know what I want at all!

I was the same with the hall stairs and landing and originally chose soft coral, but my decorator advised something more neutral (nutmeg white) and it does look lovely with white woodwork. I also love colour though so may well paint the main wall in the stairwell in a terracotta colour to pick up the hallway tiles.

If it helps

Oops, I think that's just the lining paper and not the paint colour, sorry!

No...that is the paint... 🙈