onq: thanks for the links, although i might stick to Farrow & Ball or Colortrend as they have the same "feel", although the colours on the links do look lovely, I think that now that I have the sittingroom painted already in Farrow & Ball I will have to stick to either that or Colortrend to have the same "feel" in the house throughout. But those colours on the links might be lovely if had started out with Dulux. As regards an interior designer, I did actually consult one last summer when I was rushing to get some stuff done to the house ahead of family coming home from abroad. It turned out to be a waste of my hard earned money, sadly, she wrote down everything I suggested and handed it to me in a "report" and charged 300 euro. I didnt know what hit me afterwards and felt such a fool afterwards when I thought about it. In fairness I felt under pressure with family coming home and could hardly think straight but she was supposed to be a professional after all!
Tablesalt: I do like the Tusk colour, but i think it would be dark for the hallway. Will keep it in mind for one of the bedrooms though. Now the Warm White looks good, im considering actually putting it in the hall now having looked at the colour card, what does it look like in your hallway?
Dubgem: Thanks for that tip, I think you are right in that the ground floor hallway is more important to the feel of the house.
Thanks for the comments from you all so far.....
Hi Noilheart,
You're very welcome.
I'm sorry your earlier consultation didn't yield what you hoped for, but the role of the designer in the first place is to assess the clients needs and draw out from them what their real preferencs are. These are so often subjective and may change so much that on a full appointment, interior designers - juke like architects - will try and record any decisions taken along the way as a record of work done and where the discussion has been.
SIngle consultations are of limited value however - I am used to seeing Interior Designers take a brief, work on it for a while and come back with a proposal on a sample board, including materials for curtains, carpet, floors, paint, fabrics for furniture, bedspreads, cusions and pillows. There will usually be coloured key plans, manufacturers references and prices, but it does cost more than €300, but you get a full design service. The benefit of this is that you can achieve a "look" for the whole house on an A1 board that gives a genuine feel for what the place might look like.
I'm sure there is a place for a €300 consultation-only service resulting in a report, but I find written paper reports of limited use dealing with colours. Even a printed A4 colour page with references would lift it to a very useful aide-memoire. I like to see my sample boards, colours, materials etc! However dealing with a house in a step by step fashion is a new one on me and so the interior designer you used might have felt unable to comment in the normal way.
Let me urge you to reconsider your approach. Defocus on particular rooms and consider the house and not on a space by space basis. All the items noted above need to be assessed together even if you're not changing them, because the are part of the sequence of spaces and so will work together subliminally regardless. You need to bring this subliminal meshing forward to consciousness and consider it fully. The repetition of key details in rooms, counterpoint colours, picture/poster themes or collections, all add character, and working together can give an "integrated" feel to a house that lends far more to the ambience than even good colour sequence can working by itself. Sorry for belabouring the point, and I know some people just have to get the walls right before moving on, but designers like to get the overall feel first.
Consider "pieces" in the spaces. A monochrome [single colour] space can be utterly transformed by having a counterpoint element in it - a buff or cream wall paint with a corner vase or wallhanging that's an intense blue - just to give a simplistic example. It'll tend to bring out the wall colour and make it more vibrant i chosen correctly.
The comments on paints in the first post by the way wasn't from me, it was from a qualified interior designer. I'm not saying that to get you to buy Dulux - neither she nor I have a connection with the firm. Most people come here with problemsso this is swings and roundabouts - some competent free advice that you can reflect on at your leisure and then accept or reject as you see fit. Looking at all the interest in this thread so far, you'll have a lot to think about.
HTH
ONQ.
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