New paint

Well, we have lived in our dream ramshackle house by the heath for almost a year. Perhaps, just over half a year. And we adore it for its rusticness. And we adore it because it’s the right house for us.

We were very lucky our landlords wanted to paint it. Because it hadn’t been painted in about six years. And they were going to paint it white, as initially I had suggested, but the week I spent working at Zoe’s parents house I noticed their house was painted in proper grown up colours. And I looked around and thought, “colour”. And Zoe told me about Farrow and Ball. Of course I already knew about Farrow and Ball. But Zoe SOLD me Farrow and Ball.

So I instantly went online and chose a couple of good colours and emailed our landlords and said, “Oooh. What about some colours?” And they said, “Yes. Brilliant idea. You choose them”.

Then one night I felt like staying up late. And I thought I could just do a quick sketch. But instead I did a diagram of our house. All four floors. In Omnigraffle. And then at about 1am I looked at the colour chart and picked a few that looked good in the 1am light. Some that I had already chosen, so not so random as it sounds.

And I plotted out the colours on the walls in my Omnigraffle diagram. Put in some blackboard paint. Acted as though I knew about paint. I mean, hey I choose colours all the time. Colour theory, right?

We went to France and the painters moved in. The house looks incredible. And in two weeks they’ll be finished and we’ll get our amazing new cleaner over to give the place a good old clean and I’ll be ready to photograph.

Nothing like a nice tidy house as Yvonne will testify to. When we did our little Hampstead cottage for the book shoot she said all I needed to do was hoover and dust. And put out fruit and flowers. To celebrate our new amazing cleaner who was recommended by our gorgeous neighbour I’m going to invest in a good Cath Kidston ironing board cover and a proper Dyson Hoover.

Kevin will be glad about that too. Because he’s the tidy one. Maybe one day I’ll blog about the pre-Kevin Charlotte. The very messy one indeed.

And for now I shall be happy about the new tidy Charlotte. And the new beautiful painted house.
It’s beautiful and brilliant. Very very brilliant.