How To Pick The Perfect Paint Colour (And Get It Right First Time!)

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Choosing the right paint colour for a room is probably one of the hardest decisions to make when you decorate. Colour choice seems endless as the UK alone has over 25 well-known paint brands, whose palettes start at 100 colours, going into the thousands for the larger suppliers. Just how do you pick the perfect hue for your walls without choosing the wrong one?

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Mini Bathroom Makeover: Using Wallpaper In The Bathroom

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I have a confession to make. It's a pretty bad one. Yes, I am an award-winning DIY'er, but until just before Christmas I had never put up wallpaper myself. Ever. Putting up wallpaper just seemed like one of those things that was a major headache - air bubbles, matching the pattern, having enough paper. Urgh. Too much stress. I have vague recollections of my parents putting up wallpaper and the difficulty of it causing a lot of bitching and bickering between them as they did it (I now know the reason for this being my mother is an absolute perfectionist when it comes to wallpapering, as I found out papering this bathroom with her.) Anyhow, I couldn't live with this lack of wallpapering experience shame much longer, so decided to give my bathroom a mini-makeover with wallpaper at the end of last year.

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The 3 DIY Apps You Need To Know About To Avoid Decorating Disasters

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Out of the decorating disasters that I've made in the past, there are three that have been reoccurring and incredibly frustrating. First, painting a room in a colour that ended up looking nothing like I had imagined it would in my head. Second, hanging shelves & pictures on the wonk and having to fill in the holes and start again. Lastly, wallpapering and realising that I didn't have enough paper, or I'd massively over-brought. Luckily, due to the wonder of technology, there are now a number of awesome free DIY apps available that can minimise making the mistakes I've just listed.

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Review: Hemsley - The Own Brand Paint To Rival Farrow & Ball?

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A few months ago after having an internal door replaced, I went into Homebase to buy some eggshell paint to paint the new door with. Needing to buy an eggshell that matched my already existing heritage cream skirting, I begrudgingly headed over to the Farrow & Ball paint section. Even though I'm all about doing up your home on a tiny budget, I LOVE posh paint. I'm a die-hard Farrow & Ball fan. I have a box with about 60 sample tins of Farrow & Ball paint in under the stairs. There is no contest for me when it comes to choosing F&B over cheaper brands such as Dulux or Crown. F&B paint gives a beautiful depth of colour due to its high pigmentation and the chalky matt finish looks expensive and elegant. Cheaper paints do not have this depth of colour, they fade over time and glossy paint looks cheap. F&B do a wide range of interesting colours (132 to be exact - check out 'Charlotte's Locks', an intense orange, and 'Vardo', a 50's style teal). You can get any of these colours in different finishes such as eggshell and floor paint rather than just emulsion. The paint is thick, creamy and easy to apply. It is water based and has low VOC's, so it does not smell nor pollute your house with chemicals and it's simple to clean your brushes. It is made in England.

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