Purchasing a new build house is wonderful; everything is shiny, new, sparkly and brilliant white – it’s a completely blank canvas to design and do whatever you like with – and actually… that can be really, really daunting. You see as wonderful as it is, you literally have a brand new white shell, and it can often be really hard to draw inspiration from that. As an example, if you buy a home that’s been lived in before, chances are there will be some aspects of it that drew you to the decision, you more than likely envisaged how your current belongings would fit in with the set up; there was perhaps a feature wall, or fireplace (you get the jist) that you drew inspiration from, and you begin to plan and design around those elements. With a new build, you have none of that – it doesn’t even have flooring – every single decision from the get go is yours; and, let’s face it, it’s an expensive time – you want to get it right. When we first moved into ours, I thought the all white everything element was fantastic, but I soon grew extremely bored of that and wanted to add some warmth and homeliness to the place, but in all honesty, had no idea where to begin. So we took things slowly, had a play around with ideas, and drew upon inspiration; and slowly but surely, we added our own stamp on the place. Below, I’ve put together a few tips on how we got there, which will hopefully provide you with some great advice for styling up your own blank canvas.
Transforming white walls with wire wording.
The devil is in the detail – you can’t actually paint a new build for the first six months to a year (well you can, but you shouldn’t really) as cracks do appear in the walls as the foundation settles. Your builders will repear these, but it is a pain if you’ve already plainted the wall. To counteract living with the all white for months, we really focused on our accessories, and it made a huge difference. Lighting, headboards, cushions, curtains, throws, ottomans, etc.. can all massively transform a space if you want them to; and the great thing about that is that if you get bored with your colour scheme, you can just change it up by a simple swap of your sofa cushion covers (as an example). This is also a really great way to spend some time playing around with colour ideas, and getting a feel of what will really work for you and your space. Don’t underestimate the power of soft furnishings, you can really use them to give a room a starting point to build upon. Take our living room for example, we started off with our sofa, added cushions and a few throws… once we were happy with that, we found that the whole room and the purchases we made started coming together around that, and the end result was a super homely room that felt perfectly “us”.
Using lighting accessories to add some drama and difference to an all white space.
Using florals and accessories to design up a white room.
Draw your inspiration from a wide variety of sources… Pinterest and Instagram are amazing for inspiration… but – you cannot choose your colour decisions from a phone or computer screen – seriously guys. Go have a look in person at colours, take your time and visit a decent handful of places. Neptune stores, if you’re lucky to have one near you, are amazing for this, as they actually use the colours to paint their entire showrooms; and so you can see the colour on the walls, and styled up in reality. I really can’t reiterate this point enough. Please go and view things in real life and real light — it’s such an expensive thing to get wrong.
This is the space that is shown in the picture right at the top of this blog post – but pre colour – it’s amazing how much difference some colour can make.
Don’t be afraid of colour, grey is the very in thing at the moment, and whilst I do embrace grey in aspects myself (my headboard and bed accessories are grey) you can easily overdo it, and this won’t help with the homely feel. As an example, the feature wall in our living room is actually grey based (the cover picture of this blog post) – and I have grey accessories, but the paint on the wall has a warm tone to it, which actually makes it look a lovely brown hue, and the accessories are blended with cream sofas, armchairs, lamps, cushions and throws; as well as pops of oak furniture. So whilst we are embracing the grey trend, we’ve done it with a twist and used other colours to compliment it and add our own style. Colour is the thing that will really transform a room and give it that wow factor, embrace it and enjoy it.
Our downstairs toilet (embracing the colour!). Apologies for the poor quality of the photo… it’s super difficult to get a decent quality shot when you have no natural light available.
Invest in a good quality paint – We used Farrow & Ball, and Neptune Home paints. They are expensive, absolutely – I nearly had a turn when we purchased our first pot… but I now understand that is because they add much more pigment to their colours; and honestly guys, when you have it up on the wall, it shows. Whilst I’m no means a paint snob, I do appreciate the difference this can make. The colours are also quite unusual too, so can really add a unique element to your home. Initially, I fell in love with a colour and thought that we would just go and get it colour matched at B&Q, but because they don’t add the same level of pigment (hence the price difference), you’d never actually be able to get the same look, finish and depth. We actually painted our downstairs toilet with 3 tester pots – we bought a few to see how they looked, and they just kept going and going and going – so it really doesn’t have to be massively expensive. Plus a few of the rooms we just went for feature walls, as oppose to colour over the whole room, which again really brought down the price. All that being said, actually, it’s only the rooms where we wanted a real colour statement that we used more pigmented paints – if I’m wanting all cream in a room (for example), I don’t need to be spending £50+ on that paint, to me.. there’s only so many varieties of cream you can get.
Again, showing how the use of colour can really transform a space.
Add some greenery – This will again give you that colour, but one that will work with anything. Foliage won’t need to be changed when your colour themes and paints change. Neptune do some of the most realistic looking artificial potted plants I’ve ever seen; and there’s so many extremely realistic looking faux flowers on the market now. They cost a little more, but they’re worth it as they’ll last forever. My advice here would be to go for a white bunch, with lots of foliage – that way they will stay classic and work with any style of room.
An extremely realistic looking faux plant from Neptune, adding some greenery to our kitchen against a white wall.
Experiment with artwork and prints… Desenio do an absolutely incredible range of prints at super affordable prices; and don’t underestimate the power of a good quality piece of artwork either. You can build a whole room around it. Prints and artwork are particularly good if you’re stuck with completely white walls for the time being – even more so if you’re renting and won’t be allowed to paint at all – this is the perfect way for you to add your own stamp on the place.
Using prints to turn a plain wall into a statement feature.
