I am sure that you will agree that moving into a freshly decorated home feels fantastic. This was us just 2 years ago. I loved having new carpets and clean walls to come in to, it really took a lot of the stress off the day and I was just excited to get all of our belongings unpacked and set up.
Even though the walls were all neutral however, the colour of the chimney breasts downstairs really weren’t to my liking. They were a funny shade of brown that quite honestly made me feel a bit sick. My husband didn’t understand how I could dislike a neutral colour so much, but we decided that changing the colour on the 2 chimney breasts would be one of the first things on our to do list.
Unfortunately, time really got away from us. Our eldest son started school just 4 days after we moved in and life just seemed to become extremely hectic overnight, so we were still living with the sickly colour 2 years on. To make matters worse, the clean cream walls had eventually started to look grubby. It was inevitable but having 2 young boys was really starting to show. So we thought that we had better give all of the walls downstairs a fresh coat of paint to bring it back up to scratch.
So finally, after 2 years of hating the colour on the chimney breasts downstairs, we headed out to our local DIY shop to choose a new colour. I must admit that I am a bit strange because I absolutely love going to B&Q*. I’m like a kid in a sweet shop. It must just be the excitement of decorating and making a house a home. 🙂
Fortunately it didn’t take too long to pick a colour. Although I don’t think the boys would have minded if we were there all day, the member of staff that worked in the paint department was really fantastic and kept them entertained for ages scanning all of the colour swatches that they were picking out.
As usual though we were drawn to the heritage brands, and found a great colour called ‘Tapestry Green’ from the Crown & Rose* range. As you can probably tell by the title we paid just under £25 for a 2.5litre tin. Being a total novice, I didn’t believe my Husband when he told me that just the 1 tin would cover both of the chimney breasts but I was pleasantly surprised when it did. They both had 2 coats and there is even a little paint left over if we need to touch up at some point. So even though £25 might sound a little on the expensive side, the quality of the paint meant that it went a long way. We already had paint brushes and rollers* stored away from the last time we decorated and another bonus was that we didn’t have to buy any cream paint for rest of the walls because our friend – who happens to be a painter & decorator – had a tub left over from one of his previous jobs that was a perfect match. 🙂
The difference that something as simple and easy as buying 1 tin of paint and changing the colour of a chimney breast can make is amazing. And best of all it has had the stamp of approval of our boys. They seem to love the warm and homely feel our downstairs has now just as much as me!
Have you ever done anything cheap and simple to your home that made a great impact?
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