When I started doing up my north London flat last year, I knew I wanted to experiment with different paint colours. For years, I’d been surrounded by walls covered in ‘rental white’ (what I call that peculiar off-white shade that landlords apparently use to cover every rental property on the market), and I wanted to try something different. Colour has the power to not only transform a room, but our moods too, so the pristine, all-white minimalist interiors of Instagram were never an option for me.
But after countless trips to my local Homebase and almost bankrupting myself with tester pots, I realised I didn’t have a clue where to start, and that choosing which colours to paint the different rooms in my home was a much more difficult – and intimidating – task than I thought. So, I called on the help of Tash Bradley, Director of Interior Design for Lick Paint, to help me decipher paint colours once and for all, and the results transformed my flat beyond recognition.
Here are the top paint colour hacks I learnt, with the before-and-after renovation photos to show just how transformative colour can be…
Contrary to popular belief, avoid white walls in small, dark rooms
“If you’ve got a small, dark room, you want to avoid going for anything too light because it highlights all of the shadows and makes the already small and dark room feel even smaller and darker – definitely don’t go for a bright white for instance,” says Tash. “I would recommend embracing the darkness and pair it with a dark colour. I would go for a dark, rich blue colour, like Lick’s Teal 03, Blue 07 or Blue 06. All of these colours absorb shadow and make a small dark room come into its own and give it character.”
Don’t stop at the ceiling
“A trick I would always recommend for a small dark room is to always paint your skirting and doors the same dark blue colour as the walls,” says Tash. “That way you won’t notice the edges of the room, which will make it appear more spacious. Or, you could take it one step further and also paint your ceiling. Doing this will make the room totally expand.”
I took Tash’s advice and opted for Teal 03 in my tiny bathroom which doesn’t get any natural light, on the walls and the ceiling. As you can see from the before-and-afters (below), the white only accentuated the shadows, making the room feel dingy and closed-in. You can really see how the rich blue-green absorbs those shadows and not only makes the room feel bigger, but more on-trend too.
