Saturday 25 February 2012

Don't worry it will be all white

Before we moved in a few weeks ago the new house needed a little freshening up so the easiest way to do that was paint - or so I thought. Because it is a small space we decided to paint it white - easy right? Not really - what white? White is not white. In fact I have decided it is one of the hardest paint choices to get right.

There is the whole warm versus cool decision, the tint to consider (you can often see yellow, blue, grey and even green) and the light in the space which is so amplified by white in a bright space like ours it can glow or burn if you get it 'right' or 'wrong'.

To make it even harder to decide the house has picture rails and a quite large cornice which we decided to do in a contrasting white. White on white - hard to get right.

After much deliberation and several sample pots we chose Dulux's Fair Bianca Half for the walls with the Dulux's Sago Quarter for the details. Of course it is almost pointless to show the swatches here as there is no way to see what it really looks like on a screen but it might give you some idea.

We are happy with the result. I was a little unsure at first - especially as we had chosen the colour when the old grey carpet was down and not the newly refurbished floorboards (an unavoidable no no in this circumstance). The Sago quarter is quite a nice, very pale, warm grey and the Fair Bianca Half is a soft white that I think sits nicely between warm and cool.

When trying to decide I was speaking with a friend and we both got excited when she told me that her kitchen was also Fair Bianca Half - I may have had subliminal influence because I like her kitrchen. We were both saying how we liked the very popular Antique White but stepping out of that comfort zone has worked well for us both.

You should explore the white swatches next time you are at the hardware and see what white is you. I think this combination has worked well in this space and Fair Bianca Half might be a favourite for a while but I will always spend a lot of time deliberating on white for any space because it is not all white in the end.

I will post some actual images of the space in the next few weeks (once the boxes are out of the frame)


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