With so many gorgeous images of even more gorgeous homes in magazines, on the internet and on Pinterest the latest trends and fashions are hard to ignore.
We’ve seen so many things go in and out fashion; Light & bright themes, dark & moody themes, little things like owls & foxes to concrete, marble & chalkboards. There’s always something that’s “in” at the moment – right down to the colour of the year.
So with all of these great styles, designs and abundance of inspiration around, what does that really mean for you?
We’re not ones to follow trends, but I suppose it’s almost inevitable that we’re influenced – whether we realise it or not. Just because something is the colour of the year doesn’t mean that we’re going to completely paint our home with it and a year later when the next colour is out we’re almost certainly not going to completely redecorate.
For us, it can be slightly overwhelming. There’s almost too much choice. It’s like seeing a fantastic dress on a beautiful slim model – with a completely different body shape than you – just because it looks great on someone else, doesn’t mean that it’ll work for you.
We feel the same about interiors. Just because something is the latest fashion, the colour of the year or an on trend material doesn’t mean that it’ll work in your space.
We don’t live in show homes, we aren’t perfect. We’re real life people with real life homes. Just because we share our homes and DIY adventures and misadventures, doesn’t mean that we know everything, far from it. If anything it probably proves that we need all the help we can get!
We love our home. We love bright and light spaces. Most of our rooms have a fairly neutral feel. That way, it’s easy to add splashes of colour and personality through artwork and accessories. But lately, we’ve been feeling we should be a bit more daring and try something a bit different. That’s why we’re thinking we might paint our dining room – black.
It may seem completely bonkers, but we think it could work well and add a bit more cosiness to our space. Colour has such a huge impact on your home.
As you can see, I attempted a little computer generated mock-up, just to give us a better idea of what it would look like. I really like it, but we’re still not convinced it’s the right thing to do. At the end of the day, what’s the worst that can happen? Sure it would be annoying to have to repaint the room, but in the greater scheme of things it is only a coat of paint!
What do you live like? Have you gone for any daring colour choices in your home? Do you think we’re mad to even consider painting our room black? Would you paint your walls black? Do you follow design trends?
PS. Since sharing this post we have painted the dining room! Click here to see what colour choice we went with!
Funnily enough we’re in the process of renovating our littlest bedroom to be an office and I saw a really love idea on Pinterest of dark grey which I never would have considered because I love bright, vibrant colours. Although the room is small, we have a picture rail and so would do white above that with a white ceiling, then we want to get white floating shelving installed so I don’t think the grey would make it too dark. I’m not sure I’d be brave enough to try black but like you say, it’s only a coat of paint and can be always be changed if you don’t like it. It would like really stylish with your smart black stove in the fireplace X
Haha, we painted our tiny office dark blue, with a white ceiling and white over the picture rail. Everything else (including the floating shelving) is white. I think it works really well and the room doesn’t feel smaller or darker at all. If anything it actually feels bigger than before! (You can see it in our house tour.
I think we’ll probably go for a black-blue colour if we do decide to paint the dining room. All black might be a step to far for us!
Cx
Ooh, I quite like it, but am similarly not 100%. As for us, we’re about to paint our study green – bright green. Dulux Enchanted Eden. Everyone we tell goes “wow…green? Really?”! Here’s our inspiration pic on Pinterest: Modern-Small-IKEA-Home-Office-Design-Ideas.jpg (550×640) – http://pinterest.com/pin/69946600437392046/?utm_source=android_share
At first even the little black paint swatches on the dining room walls seemed a bit much, but it’s actually really growing on me.
I love the green inspiration! I think a lot of people struggle to imagine what a space will look like and struggle with anything that’s they’re not used to. I’m sure the same people will think your room is amazing once you’ve painted it!
Cx
I painted the walls in the main part of my 900 sq ft condo orange “apricot light” with closet doors and a niche painted “pumpkin spice” the names of the paint colors actually do a good job of conveying the color. I love it. With lovely neutral (mainly brown based) furniture and rugs, it has a very cozy feel. Not a choice I see most folks thinking about, but I love my orange walls. I wouldn’t do black – navy or dark green, but not black. That said I’ll look forward to seeing how yours turns out! Thanks always for sharing your adventures!
Wow, orange, sounds amazing!
If we do decide to paint our walls, we probably won’t choose a solid black colour. I’m thinking of something like Blackblue by Farrow & Ball or Basalt by Little Greene. At the moment we’re still trying to pluck up the courage though!
Cx
Oh yes, do it! It’ll look amazing and you guys will be able to style it right, no worries.
Dark walls do seem to be a bit of a trend right now and like you, we’re not bothered about following trends but clearly have been influenced by them….which is why our bedroom ended up Hague Blue and I LOVE it!
Question is, would you go all out for the trend and paint the ceiling too?!
It’s looking quite likely, Jude! We’re really warming to the idea. I don’t think that we would (almost ever) paint the ceiling anything other than a shade of white. Although we’re lucky to have such high ceilings I think it would feel a bit depressing to have a black ceiling and black walls – we are thinking about painting the skirting boards, though!
Cx
Hi Christine and Jan
I found your blog a few weeks ago and I love how you put your posts together. Sharing not only the technical stuff but how you both feel about the process (with plenty of pics). Its the perfect timing too, as we will be moving into out first house soon so will be keen to pick up some tips and inspiration from what you have done so far.
What a fab idea of doing a mock up of the dark blue paint in Photoshop. It looks great and I can’t what see what you decide. Out of interest, where did you get your lovely white dining room side board / dresser? x
Thank you so much for your kind comment, Victoria & congratulations on your new home!
The sideboard is from Urban Suite. I don’t think they have that particular one anymore, but they have lots that are similar.
Cx
Yes! Love the idea, as I have painted my share of walls in bold, darker shades. I find that using darker colours works best when you have brighter accessories – like artwork, furniture and shelves – to contrast, avoiding the ‘depressing dark’ that people would normally associate with darker colours (bright white ceilings help this, too). It really makes everything else *pop* much more than lighter, calmer colours.
One thing, though – if you paint the section of the wall with the fireplace black, you’ll likely lose the detail of the – gorgeous! – fireplace, as it will blend in too much with the walls. (Although, on my screen the colour you used comes up as a dark teal, not sure if this is true to life, and if it is I’d think the loss of detail might not be as much of an issue). Maybe use a contrasting colour there, and paint everything else black, or maybe a dark grey?
Also, if there was one thing I would do differently is use matte/flat paint, instead of eggshell, which shines a lot more with darker colours than with lighter ones. I normally use eggshell when painting other colours, and hadn’t thought it would be different with my oxblood, dark brown, or deep eggplant walls. It’s not the end of the world, but lesson learned.
Thanks for the encouragement, Liz! We do have a lot of bright artwork which we hoped would work well on the darker walls and it’s great to hear that you think so, too.
You’re totally right about the fireplace disapearing in a wall of blackness and it is something that we are conserned about, too. It’s something that we’ll definitely have to think about!
The colour we’re leaning towards at the moment is Basalt by Little Greene (which isn’t the one on the images). It does have bluey undertones, so wouln’t be completely black. I completely agree with you about using matte paint! We’ve used matte paint thoughout the whole house and I think the almost chalky feel would work well in the room Our walls also aren’t perfectly smooth enough to warrent a sheen.
Thanks for your advice!
Cx
I love it! Can’t wait to paint a wall (and mantelpiece) in our Living a really dark grey/off black! Only do it if you like it, who cares whether it’s out of fashion next week!
Totally agree, Fin! It’s your home, do what you like!
Cx