Farrow & Ball decorating feedback thread - find out how the MNers get on with their paint and at the colour talk - non testers: chance to win paint! NOW CLOSED

[AnnMumsnet]

This is the thread for the lucky MNers and bloggers who attended an event at a Farrow & Ball showroom to find out all about colour in the home and who have then been sent paint and product from Farrow & Ball to decorate a room at home.

Non testers - for a chance to win 10 litres of either Modern Emulsion or Estate Emulsion paint from Farrow & Ball (colour of your choosing) please share on this thread the room in your house you'd most like to decorate - what colour scheme you'd use and why you want to decorate it. Add your comment to this thread by Monday 26th January and you'll be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win 10 litres of either Modern Emulsion or Estate Emulsion paint from Farrow & Ball (worth up to c£144, depending on what's chosen).

At the event there was a special inspirational colour talk from their International Colour Consultant Joa Studholme - she also gave MNers and bloggers advice on schemes and colours.

Participants - please answer the following questions.

At the event:
a) How informative/inspirational did you find the initial colour talk with Joa and the rest of the F&B team?
b) Please share the most interesting piece of colour advice or decorating tip you learnt on the day?
c) What did you find the most interesting aspect of our colour talk?
d) How do you think we could improve our colour talk event? (Please consider the venue, refreshments, structure etc?)

Now on the colour advice / selecting a colour scheme
a) Where do you normally go to find inspiration when deciding on a colour scheme for your chosen room/s? (Please think about Farrow & Ball websites, social media, magazines, websites showroom staff etc?)
b) Which source do you normally find the most inspirational and which is no good! Would you like more places to get inspiration and what form would they take?

F&B products
Which room(s) did you decorate?
a) Please describe your experience of using Farrow & Ball paints to decorate your room from first opening the tin, to completing the project and seeing the results?
~ think about ease of application, product quality, depth of colour and finish etc...
b) After your experience would you consider using Farrow & Ball paint in your home again? If so, why? If not, why not?
c) Now that you?ve used Farrow & Ball paint, how likely would you be to recommend it to a friend? And why?

Any other comments?

Please do also share your photos on this thread!

Thanks
MNHQ
UPDATE:
Video all edited and beautiful here:

AND amazing comp here

My daughter's room, in lilac and blue - it really needs an update and since I won some Frozen themed bedroom furniture recently, it'd be nice to make it more child-friendly.
We moved into our house about 5 & a half years ago but we've not managed to decorate upstairs as we've been concentrating on the downstairs and outside.

non tester here too
I need to decorate our studio this spring and it badly needs it - I want to do it in quite a cool, Scandi colour scheme as it has lovely exposed beams etc - and hopefully break free from my Dimity addiction. I did a kitchen a couple of years ago in Cornforth White and would love to try that on walls.
Fingers crossed - I spend a bloody fortune on F&B.

Non tester here
I'm a Dimity addict too cooper44
Our hall and landing needs a repaint , have my eye on Dimpse

Non tester here. We need to redecorate our living room. It is currently sandy goldy colour walls, black leather sofas and deep red curtains and accents. I love the colours so much I am struggling for ideas but would love to try to find some

Any inspiration for a south-west facing traditional bay-windowed room in an Edwardian house appreciated!

If F&B would provide some Eggshell instead of emulsion, I would paint my wooden kitchen units in a dark shade to highlight the blue & white tiles - Drawing Room Blue or Pitch Blue.

I think ecayres kitchen looks great!

Non tester but F&B fan here. Their colours are fantastic in our period property. Given the chance I would redecorate our hallway. It hasn't been done since we moved in, and 6 years of family life have left it looking rather scuffed. Not sure re colours, I love the green palette (as my user name suggests, ) but we have done two bedrooms in different shades of green and I think the hallway too might be overkill. So I'm thinking a warm, pinky neutral, though Lulworth Blue is also jumping out at me.

Non tester here.

I would love to decorate my spare bedroom. It is a dull shade of nothing with not much character and I'd love to paint it in shades of soft blue. I'd also love to use it as a room to go and relax and read in in with an armchair (and as an escape for when DH is snoring!).

I am lovely all the different shades of blue on the Farrow and Ball website, especially Blue Ground and Lulworth Blue. I would paint the walls and have some neutral curtains and accessories with a few pops of colour and opulent lamps and lights.

We didn't take part in the trial. I would however really love to decorate my bedroom. We moved in to our house and got pregnant very soon afterwards so our room has never really been decorated as a grown up bedroom. My little boy is 7 months old now and we are hoping to move him into his own bedroom soon which will mean that for the first time since we moved in I can focus on making our bedroom a relaxing space for us.... until he starting being able to get out of bed and come to join us!

Non-tester here. I would decorate my hall as with a toddler and his toys smashing up against it the poor hall is in need of new paint. I'd go neutral but darker than beige. Maybe more a light brown or grey. The toddler would be banned from lifting, pushing or pulling toys in that area. It is quite a large area with a turn at the stair case so will need to hire someone in to do the job.

Non-tester.

I've really enjoyed this inspirational thread. I've only just heard of Farrow and Ball and really love the colours. We are slowly doing our house, room by room but the hallway, which was done first, is such a high traffic area it needs doing again before we get on to the final few rooms (thanks, kids and dog). It is a neutral cream (with added mud) and I'd really like to try a different colour, but it must still be light as there are no windows. Elephant's Breath looks nice but i'm off to Homebase tomorrow to check the colours available.

How easy are F&B colours to wipe clean without removing half the paint job?

Here's my first post, answering the questions and initial impressions.
Part two with the finished result over the weekend :)
Thanks for having me at the event, enjoyed it.
www.autismmumma.com/2015/01/letting-the-light-in-with-farrow-and-ball-part-1/

Non tester here, I'd like to decorate our hall, stairs and landing. Since we had DS we desperately need to change the carpet downstairs to laminate and replace the pitted pink monstrosity on the stairs to something I don't catch my feet on. it makes sense to do it all at once. It's a dark space so something light, clean and airy that replaces the 70's tastic wallpaper in three (yes, three) different patterns.

I want to decorate our bedroom. We moved into our house 10+ years ago and it is the only room that we haven't done. My husband takes the view that nobody but us sees it so it doesn't count. I see it and I think I count!

Non tester
We have a downstairs bathroom that everyone goes in as it's by the front door. It was done by the previous people and is looking run down with marks and scratches on the walls.
I like the Parma grey, so I'd like to use a colour like that with blue accessorise

the room in your house you'd most like to decorate I have lived with a dull grey living room for 2 years, and am planning to decorate it before spring, when the sun will start shining through the window again! I have to decorate in neutral colours only, (by order of the landlord) so need to choose a light, bright neutral shade. Having helped a friend pick colours recently, I am aware that f&b gave some great choices - what colour scheme you'd use I want a cream shade which will go with a green leafy wallpaper for the chimney breast feature wall. I will paint the mantelpiece the same cream.... It's currently chocolate brown, so might take a few coats! . and why you want to decorate it I imagine I will be spending quite a bit of time in that room come summer as I am expecting dc 3, and I need it to be bright and cheerful. The grey looks really tired, and depressing.

I would most like to decorate my sons bedroom. He's 10 and has lived with his crappy magnolia walls for years. For his tenth birthday he wants a grown up bedroom but we are a bit broke, so we are going to have to do it on a shoestring.

My mum made him some new curtains with some bargain fabric, so I'm using those as the colour scheme. The background is a hessian colour and the trainers are either red or navy blue. So I was thinking a nice grown up hessian type colour on the walls, with navy or red bedding and red accessories.

To be honest, the whole house needs decorating, but DS is such a great kid, Im prioritising his room so he has a space away from a toddler brother.

Fingers crossed!

I would like to do the kitchen/dining/family room.
It is a bright airy room that looks out over the garden and I would lingo bring the outdoors inside. I want to use greens and yellow with bird patterns to pull the room together.

The room that I'd most like to paint is my kitchen. It has been a long hard exercise in making do on a budget, but it could be even better. Nice room - sunny, French windows over big garden. But when we moved in it was painted bright yellow (including ceiling) with scarlet woodwork, scarlet tiles, terracotta floor and wood-effect melamine. I couldn't afford a new kitchen so painted the walls and ceiling a soft putty colour, which cooled all the orange and red tones but I still couldn't live with it. So I painted all the units a soft creamy putty colour. And the tiles. And now I'm living in a taupe box.

I think I need to leave the units as they are, but paint the ceiling white and the walls a strong grey. At the moment the floor is the strongest colour in the room and I need to counteract that with a stronger, darker wall colour that will also contrast with the units and tiles. The room is very sunny so I think it can take a darker colour. I'm thinking maybe Lamp Room Gray or Manor House Gray?

The kitchen is my favourite room in the house and the only one that feels 'mine', not colonised by others. I love sitting in it and looking out over the garden. My mum has just given me a large oil painting of a woman, painted by a family friend the year I was born, which is all mustards, olives and greys; and I have an antique gold starburst clock on the wall. It has to be grey, doesn't it? Then I might get my old Parker Knoll armchair re-upholstered and put in the corner, so me and the cat can enjoy it together.

Non-tester.
I would like to paint my bedroom, as it's the only room that hasn't been refreshed since we moved in 6 years ago. The room faces East and so gets the morning sun. I would ideally paint it something light like Pale Hound, as it's the only room that wouldn't be finger marked in 5 minutes.

Non-tester

I'd like to decorate the playroom. It's supposed to be a dining room, but is a playroom/study mix, with alcove shelving and a door to the back garden.

It's north facing though, and massively overshadowed by a huge laburnum tree (ours, and not going anywhere, despite the darkness of the playroom).

I'd like to make it, I don't know, punchier. But not dark. Not dark at all.

It's currently painted in snowdrop - an off white. Which is inoffensive. But dull.

Should add that I'm a non-tester too.

I'm very jealous of those who did test and went to this session. I would love to learn all about the whites, and find out why dark skirting boards are A Good Thing. Have Joa's tips been written up somewhere?

Non tester- would love to decorate my daughters room ??

Non tester- Since we moved in 3 years ago we've decorated a few rooms but our bedroom still has insipid ferny textured wall paper which is about as not-me as you could get. Some lovely paint would spur me on to get it done!

Non Tester. The room I would most like to decorate would be the one that is currently our bedroom- I am due baby number three in April and my daughter will be moving into our room with the new baby while my older son moves into her box room to keep some space of his own. Both the children are really excited about the new baby and have been really good about giving up their own space.

We have already tackled the box room and turned it into a space worthy of a 7 year old boy but at our bedroom remains a dreary adult room and needs transforming into a beautiful space for a 3 year old girl and a baby boy, I am lacking in inspiration at the moment. I am thinking if we can choose some beautiful colours for the walls then we will be able to make it child friendly with some appropriate accessories and curtains. Perhaps considering a pale purple or pink on two walls and a nice blue on the other two but would really love someone arty to inspire me!