The brief
“We kept painting it white to make it feel bigger. It never worked. We wanted to stop fighting the dark and enjoy it.”
How we did it
The front room at Calder Road faces north and gets the sun for about an hour in June. Ruth and David had tried three shades of white and the room still felt grey and cold, so it was used for little more than storing the Christmas tree.
We went the other way. Walls, skirting and ceiling are all one deep bottle green in a soft matt finish, so the corners disappear and the room feels wrapped rather than small. The old gas fire came out and a small wood burner went in, with a tobacco-brown tiled hearth and an oak mantel made by a joiner in the next village.
What we did
- Colour-drenched walls, woodwork and ceiling
- New hearth, mantel and stove
- Wall lights and two lamps on one switch
- Sofa reupholstered in a rust wool
- Shelving built into both alcoves
