My partner and I recently bought our first home. As well as being first time homeowners it is also the first time either of us has decorated a property. We’ve both done bits and pieces of painting here and there, but don’t have any real experience. Having been in our new home a couple of months now, we’ve bought a few bits and pieces of furniture here and there, but haven’t yet started really decorating any of the rooms. Over the coming weeks and months we are set to decorate our new home and I will keep a diary to give you an insight into the trials and tribulations of how this goes for both of us. It’s also a great way for me to document this particular milestone in both of our lives.
Our new home is only 8 years old, so is a relative new build, therefore we have lovely smooth walls and the decor is pretty neutral – a blank canvas. ‘Easy’ I hear you say…not so much! There are so many options to think about, so many paint colours and colour schemes – difficult to choose. Alongside this there are two of us to satisfy as we are both approaching this as a team (it would have been much more straight forward if he’d just left me to it – modern men!). Alongside this we also need to consider the furniture we’ve already bought and also the way our house is positioned – we don’t get much light on the front, so it can be quite dark.
We began by picking a wallpaper for the bedroom – and as this is not something we offer on Roman at Home, we decided to hit the Laura Ashley sale to get the good stuff. Somehow when picking wallpaper, we also managed to pick out our couch! It was on the hit list to buy, but just came along sooner than expected. Anyway, back to wallpaper: we narrowed it down to three wallpapers in the shop and took a sample of each home. We stuck all three to the designated wall to be papered in the bedroom and picked our favourite. We were sure to leave them up for a few days so we could check them out in all lights. Like the couch, the decision was agreeable for both of us – we both saw one as a clear winner (the middle one – as it was light enough to brighten up the room but did introduce some other tones). So far so good.
Narrowed down to 2 paints for bedroom & checking contrast
So all going to plan so far. Now for the paint colour for the bedroom and the living room – first stop sample pots of paint.
Our ever expanding collection of sample pots
This part didn’t go so smoothly – the paint looks completely different on your wall to how it looks in the pictures on the website. The first 5 sample pots were a no.
Colour Samples on the Wall
At this stage we begin to have disagreements about the colour scheme for the living room – I like neutral schemes and wanted creams and golds, but Scott was keen to get some colour included.
Cue, more sample pots being purchased and tried. Still no good!
Even more sample pots purchased…at this stage I can confidently say we are keeping Dulux in business with the amount of sample pots we have purchased…13 in total! However success was ours as we managed to pick one of the colours to go in the bedroom – a lovely light colour called Almost Oyster from Dulux that we felt would really lighten up the room. No such luck with the living room however…the search goes on! We have a little while to wait for the couch to be delivered so have made the decision to just focus on the bedroom at this stage and move onto the sitting room once that’s complete.
Paint colour picked I headed out and have purchased paint, paint brushes, a pasting brush, rollers and masking tape, ready to tackle the decorating next weekend. I have also put a call into my mum to ask to borrow some bits and pieces from her, such as step ladders and a pasting table (got to save where you can).
So what have I learnt so far…paint colours are a mystery until you get them on your wall. Always purchase a sample pot to ensure the colour will be as expected!
Next week we move onto the actual decorating (eeekkk!), so don’t forget to check back and find out how the bedroom turns out.
