10 Beautiful Rooms

Starting off this week’s edition of 10 Beautiful Rooms with this fabulous kitchen from Devol. I’m not sure I would ever have the courage to paint my own in this colour but I could stare at it all day. Am seriously wondering if I need to just have a print made of this and stick it on the wall. Is that weird?

I think it might be weird, but oh that colour. And it works so well with the battered old table. And the strong black and and white tiles. It is definitely the sum of its parts. I love it all.

Over the years of interviewing people about their houses, as well of manufacturers of kitchens, it has become apparently that that is the one room that is most likely to be devoid of colour. People will paint a strong colour in a sitting room or even a bedroom but for some reason, they play it safe in the kitchen.

But when you think about it, if you are spending money on appliances and units in safe neutral colours – so you don’t run the risk of going off them because you will have to live with them for a long time – the kitchen walls are the one place you can afford to push it a little. That’s easy to change and imagine if they change these walls to navy blue or green or even dark grey in a few years time. The whole room will feel different and refreshed but nothing else needs to change.

It will feel like a new kitchen for the price of the paint. Think on’t as they say. And here, from the new autumn winter collection at Heals, are a couple more dark and stunning walls to get you in the mood.

On the other hand, this is Pearl Lowe’s kitchen, which was recently done by Devol as well. Strong cupboards, pale walls and lots of interesting trinkets to make it a really personal space. This is the approach we have gone for – cupboard doors made in MDF and therefore, relatively, easy to change should the mood take us.

Clearly the mood takes me on a weekly basis but less so The Mad Husband and the bank manager but you get the point. You could change this element every few years if you fancied and everything else could stay in place. Painting cupboards is more of a faff than painting walls but perhaps a less scary thing to do in terms of the amount of colour you would be bringing in.

Talking of dramatic paint changes, this is the hall of Fiona Cameron, whose aroundthehouses blog has featured on this pages before. I showed you her dramatic dark sitting room and she was painting the hall at the time.

Do go and have a look. And she made that chandelier by the way. I know. Words fail. She hasn’t done a full post on how to do it yet but has linked to her inspiration if you fancy having a go.

Finally this loft apartment is such a gorgeous space but I included it mainly for the chairs. Pink chairs. As it happens I have the black version of them and am slightly envious of them in pink. I probably wouldn’t have got them past The Mad Husband but they are gorgeous and given all the black accents in this room bring just the right amount of lightness to the space.

Have a bonus 11th picture below so you can see them in close up. They are the muuto visu and the green factory light over the table was another clever touch.