First room complete!

Yeah!!!! One room in my house is actually complete. Well, I'd like a picture on the wall and the lamp shade on the table lamp is temporary, but for such  minor details how can one resist blog-celebrating?
Of course it is the least necessary room in the whole house - my dressng room:

And the paint is on the walls downstairs. I ignored all your advice (but thank you for it anyway) and went with  the recommendation of Best Quilting Buddy who knows best, having slept in the rooms concerned. She recommended placing the the darkest colour on the two window walls and the small wall in the dining room backing onto the kitchen and she was dead right.

Its hard to photograph the colours accurately, but we went with  Farrow and Ball Green Blue ( or it might be called Blue Green, I forget) in the lounge with Pavillion Grey in the alcoves. The carpet ('Silverstone') was laid today.

In the dining room and sun lounge we went with Ringwold Ground and Lichen which I absolutely love. It is perfect and a touch darker and earthier than the dreadful lightbulbs we inherited make it look in this photo. And in fact, despite deciding not to go for two shades of green, when the sun is shining in, the sun lounge looks lighter than the dining room which is what I wanted to achieve anyway.

We had a slight wobble when the lounge was first painted as the colours looked slightly different to me and I was disappointed. It transpired that when the decorator said he would get us the Farrow and Ball paint we chose trade, he actually meant he (and all of his decorator freinds who he rang) had never heard of Farrow and Ball, didn't know that it was a traditional paint company with no acrylics which gives a better depth and chalkier, longer lasting finish and that he would take our paint chart have it scanned and buy a close match in trade standard Crown Paint.

It was in fact an interesting experiment because it confirmed that the use of a company like Farrow and Ball is not just a middle-class affectation but really does produce a different result from the standard DIY store paint. And that scanning a colour gives a very close but not exact match. The grey in particular was very, very close but to my eye had a taupe undertone compared with the blue undertone of the F&B paint. The decorator redid the lounge and was duly educated!