Do We Really Have to Paint?

We paint to increase the value of our homes, to make ourselves a beautiful place to come home to, and to express ourselves. So, if you like a shabby, lived-in look, can you skip painting and just let your house paint weather?

It's a mistake. In Sydney, and throughout Australia, sun and wind create harsh weather conditions from the point of view of paint. Salt spray in the air, enjoyable as it might be for those of us who live on the northern beaches, is rough on paint, too.

When paint becomes weathered, it's giving you a message.

Under that paint is a structure built of wood, brick, stucco, or some combination of these and similar materials. All these materials are subject to weathering, just as paint is. Paint, which is composed largely of minerals, provides protection for the materials that make up your home or commercial building. When the paint fails, that protection is gone. The weathering continues to take place, but it's your home's structure that gets damaged.

Paint for the beauty of your home, of course -- but remember that you're also painting to protect your home.

Do Many Hands Make Light Work?

When we at Courtney & Wise head out for a job, we often take a team. A couple of people painting together can help each other, provide feedback and advice when needed, and even have more fun while they work.

Should you try to work as a team when you paint your own kitchen?

First, think about your space. The kitchen in these pictures is small, and having two blokes and a ladder in it makes it smaller still. If you and your spouse plan to paint, think about how it goes when you try to cook together. Is the space so small that you're always under each other's feet? Consider that painting -- unlike cooking -- is probably an activity you don't do all the time. Unlike these experienced tradies, you probably won't be working with economy of motion and confidence. If you have trouble sharing the space for daily work, you may have some slapstick moments if you try to paint as a team.

Think of any old comedy routine you've seen on the telly with ladders, boards, and cans of paint.

Think, too, about how you deal with stress. If it's "misery loves company" and you like having someone with you when you feel stressed, you may be an ideal candidate for painting as a team. If you're more likely to snap at your partner when you have a crick in your neck from painting the details, you should stick with separate rooms -- while painting, at least.

A good dose of self-knowledge helps with this decision. Look back over the past month or so of your life:

• How many times have you found fault with someone else's work and itched to do it yourself so it would be done right?
• How often have your feelings been hurt when someone pointed out a fault in your work?
• How many times have you been able to help out a mate on a bit of DIY by holding or fetching or measuring something?
• How many times has someone gotten in your way when you were trying to get a job done?

Some of us work together well and some don't.

If you decide to work together as a team, be sure there are enough quality painting tools to go around. Trying to take turns with the roller or share a brush will drive you both mad.

In the best-case scenario, you'll have a few days of happy cooperative work and end up with a nice newly-painted room you can be proud of. In the worst case --well, call us at 9958 1099 before you reach that point. 

Home Decorating: Where to Splurge, Where to Skimp

The pleasures of decorating or redecorating a home are many: choosing colours, touching lovely fabrics, shopping for bibelots, imaging yourself in your gorgeous new room... those are the fun parts. Less fun, but equally important is planning the budget.

You can create a beautiful room at any budget point. The thing to avoid is jumping into one aspect of the job and spending all the available funds there, so you have to skimp to finish up -- or leave the job unfinished because you ran out of money.

One option is to set up a budget that includes all the items you want at the lowest prices possible for each item. This can end up looking shabby. A better way to go is to be strategic about where you save and where you spend.

Let's start with an empty room.

Paint: Don't skimp here. Paint has the best return on investment of any decorating element. It's the cheapest way to make a big difference. And the difference between high quality and low quality is large. Use top quality paint and get professional help if you need it, and your paint job will keep your home or office looking good for years.

Wallpaper: Inexpensive papers often have more ordinary designs, but they'll still work well. Take time to look at lots of papers to find a modest priced paper you really like, or use a high-end paper in smaller doses. Mixing wallpaper and paint or stain can give a luxe effect while saving you a packet.

Window treatments: Simple treatments with bamboo shades or plain curtains in natural fabrics are popular right now. This is an area where a DIY look is in style (unlike paint and wallpaper, where you want professional results). Draping a pretty fabric over a striking curtain rod can be plenty in a room that doesn't need much window coverage for privacy. Prefer a formal look? Shop for ready-made window treatments instead of bespoke ones. If your windows are not a stock size, you can go a bit bigger for formal draperies.

Major furnishings: The sofa in a living room or the bed in a bedroom will really set the tone of your room. This is not the place to go cheap and cheerful. This is the place to look for a great used piece, though. An estate sale or op shop can give you more for the same money compared with buying new.

Add-on furnishings: While your major piece of furniture should be the best you can afford, secondary pieces can be a savings opportunity. Side chairs, occasional tables, and shelving can be less expensive or even a DIY project. Use a bargain table and cover it with a beautiful cloth, or paint mismatched side chairs for a fun look.

Decorative artwork and objects: You can definitely do these on the cheap with a bit of creativity. A bit of beautiful fabric, a quilt, or a poster can look just as good in your room as expensive artwork. Decorative objects often just provide a pop of colour or a bit of sentiment. Check crafts shops or your granny's attic to find some eye-catching objects -- and remember that less is more when it comes to knick knacks.

Pink and Grey Living Rooms

The living room may be the last place you think about when you want to add a trendy touch to your decorating -- or the first. Either way, you can bring this year's warm greys and blush pinks into your decorating in this room.

Both pale pink and grey are elegant wall colours. Go pale enough with either and you'll have a near neutral, one of the newest ways to add a bit of an edge to your decor without giving up a classic feel.

Choose a deeper, warmer grey or a stronger shade of pink to go with a trendier look.

With pale pink walls, grey painted woods or grey furnishings look new. A splash of white or natural wood trim reminds us of sunrise on the beach. Grey trim or a pink and grey patterned paper kicks the look up a bit.

Grey walls, with white trim or with a second shade of grey, gives a modern, streamlined finish to a room. Pink soft furnishings give a decidely feminine feeling, even in small doses.

Expect to see a lot more of this combination in decorating magazines and TV shows!

Purple Bedrooms

We're seeing a lot of purple in fashion for springs, from clothing to make up to home decor. Whether for a teen or a master suite, this colour can be the starting point for a luscious bedroom. Here we see it in a fairly high concentration, on the walls as well as furnishings and fittings. With some white to freshen it up, this is a feminine, creative look.

A more sophisticated take on the same approach uses multiple patterns and a couple of shades of purple to create a rich, luxurious look. Again, it's a feminine look, and the level of detail -- tufting, ruffles, fringe, prints -- adds to the pampered air. The rest of the furnishings are spare, though, so the look is not over the top.

This room uses a deep, bold purple for walls, with white trim. Then equally bold and trendy colours are introduced into the soft furnishings, leaving viewers with an overall impression of cool colours and jewel-like brightness rather than just "Purple!"

Our last example uses purple furniture but grey walls and white soft furnishings keep the colour from being overwhelming. This room isn't too feminine for a couple.

Yellow Dining Rooms

You liked our Mint Green Kitchens, so let us show you another trend: yellow dining rooms.

Yellow is trendy this season and there are plenty of lovely shades of yellow in current paint palettes, but it's hard to pull off.

For one thing, yellow tends to be a stimulating color. It can make people feel more energetic, but it can also make them irritable over time. This makes it perfect for a dining room, a room in which we don't spend very long stretches of time.

Yellow can also become overwhelming and too bright in a sunny room. Dining rooms, often interior rooms without windows, are better suited to this kind of bright colour than an already sunny living room.

Yellow, a traditional kitchen decorating colour, may also be a good choice to carry into the dining area if you have an open plan home with a cheery yellow kitchen.

Our first example above is an extremely yellow room, wonderful for someone who truly loves the colour. Before you plan a room like this, check your wardrobe.If you don't have a lot of yellow in things you use every day, you might not be the ideal candidate for a room like this one.

This example uses a softer yellow touched with white, and carries it into the living room as well. If you want to keep your colour scheme as long as possible, you can choose paint like this and add artwork or decorative objects in the trendy solar yellow. When trends change, this pale buttery shade will look equally good with neutrals, citrus tones, or whatever else catches your fancy in the future. 

Colour Inspiration Tools

Colour inspiration tools abound on the web, so why not get inspired? Here are some great new ones:

• Chip It, from American paint company Sherwin Williams, creates a palette for you from any picture you choose. A clear copy of Pinterest, Chip It gives you a Chip It button for your toolbar, and it works on your smartphone as well. Upload a picture or provide a URL, and Chip It will create a Chip Card like the one below. Finding the paint colours to match is easy, even if you're not using Sherwin Williams paint. 

• Design Seeds doesn't let you make your own. This is a drawback if you want to create a palette based on a fabric or your garden as visible through the window. If you were just planning to seek out a lovely picture, though, you will find many, many beautiful palettes already created. The neat tool in this case is the palette search, visible in the screen shot below. You can set colours and also search by theme. We found the example below in the themes on "The Sea."

• Colorbe contains a lot of ads, but it also allows you to apply the palettes to an interior photo. Once you've got a room "painted" in your chosen colour scheme, you can change each element individually by clicking and choosing new colours. This can be a lot of fun, and you end up with not merely a set of colours, but colours divided into those for the walls, those for the furnishings, and those for the ornaments.

 

Painting a Wardrobe

A wardrobe may be almost an afterthought when you're painting, but it doesn't have to be.

In the example above, the wardrobe in question is not a mere cupboard: it's a dressing room, with toilet and full-size mirror as well as luxurious amounts of storage. You'll see that this room is in the process of being prepared for its beautiful new paint job.

Whether your room boasts a walk-in wardrobe like this or a small cupboard for a miminal quantity of clothes, you have a number of effective choices for painting and decorating:

• Match the bedroom or bathroom the cupboard belongs to. This can be the most economical approach, and it will look tidy and streamlined. Here, a biscuit shade goes well with the wooden trim.
• Reverse trim and wall colours. If the bedroom has biscuit walls with plum trim, paint the wardrobe plum with biscuit trim. This can be particularly effective with deep colours. If the main room has a focus wall, use that colour for the cupboards.
• Choose a wallpaper or paint that coordinates with the colours of the room but still provides a bit of a surprise. If your simple, elegant bedroom is in tones of dove grey and charcoal, a grey and pink floral paper might make you smile every time you open the cupboard door. 
• Make a (nearly) complete change. Opening the cupboard shouldn't make you feel as though you've entered another room entirely. However, a wardrobe can be just the place for a bright colour or a pricey paper that you love but wouldn't want to use in a larger space.