Kitchen: Colour me beautiful....

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Anyway, pressing on with the kitchen. Once I'd done my taking stock (not at all the same as a stock-take!) of the room, the next stage was colour choice. My favourite, bestest, most enjoyable bit in the whole world ever! I could look at paint colours all day every day. Mmmmmmm. Mr Modern Country is completely confounded by this pastime. If I've heard 'Oh, you're looking at colour charts.... again' once, I've heard it a thousand times!

So how do I choose a colour for a room? Well, my first step is always to look through as many colour charts as possible, waiting for particular shades to jump out at me. Not because they're garish but just because I love them. The kitchen is a North-West facing room that doesn't get masses of light, especially in the winter so the colour can't be too cool.

When I've narrowed the choice down slightly....

I buy sample pots........

and paint them onto A3 bits of paper.

I then hold these up in different places in the room and at different times of day and night to get a feel for how they react to different moods. Those photos are of almost all of my sample pots, by the way, not just the ones I've bought for the kitchen. There are a lot, I know, but I find that if you rely on the paint chips on the charts then, especially with the more expensive brands, you can't get a good understanding of how the paint will look on a larger scale.

By this time, I've usually narrowed it down to two or three. I've taken some shots of different pieces of paper held up against one of the kitchen cupboards. It looks bizarrely like I've actually painted the room in each of the colours in the photos but, rest assured, I didn't take my crazy colour obsession that far! So, here goes....

Farrow and Ball Ball Green:

Farrow and Ball Blue Grey:

Paint and Paper Company Eucalyptus:

My vote's with the Blue Grey. Which do you like? Watch this space!