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Autumn is upon us and I haven’t blogged for a while. I almost intentionally took the summer off, I wanted to make sure I was present with my son during these difficult and strange times we’re living through. But by 9.15 on his first day back to school I was already atop a ladder with paintbrush in hand ready to revamp spaces I’d been thinking about changing for months, starting with the home office. You may remember that we had a room shuffle at the start of the year, I designed an older bedroom space for Ted, streamlined our hallway and his old bedroom became my home office.

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I was very conscious that this was the third decorating job in as many weeks. And so I only committed to the colour I was debating on one wall to see how I felt about it. Then lockdown happened. Between home school and my husband initially working from home the space became much busier. Outside of the mess and busy-ness in here, having lived with a Green Smoke wall behind the computer for six months I knew that I loved its depth and calm and was ready to extend the shade on the rest of the walls. But annoyingly I could also see that the white ceiling wasn’t doing it any justice (hands up who hates having to paint a ceiling?!). The rest of the walls remained School House White from the days when it had been my son Ted’s Bedroom and they really worked with the green. School House White is a lovely colour from the range of shades made by Farrow & Ball to represent true white in deep shade. Having decided to put Green Smoke on the walls and School House White on the ceiling I decided to also extend the colour from the window frame, Paean Black, to the picture rail and fireplace to make my scheme feel definite, architectural even in sensibility.

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I am over the moon with these colours, they give them room a more cohesive feel and inject both a calmness and a seriousness to the space. I love subtle noise from colour, and couldn’t concentrate in a white box, so this is the perfect palette of colourful yet calm for me. The shades also perfectly suit the deeper wood tones I have in here. I have added in some styling details but for a full source list of everything in this space, please see my makeover post here.

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After six months of jealousy I have stolen the wicker chair from Ted’s bedroom swapping it out with a mid-century yellow chair that works much better in his room (my excuse anyway, he seems to love it!). One of the few things I put on the walls during the original makeover was a black and white floral print by Norm Architects, I loved the monochrome against the green and  decided I wanted to add more of this natural element, particularly as it’s such a touchstone of design in my home. On the adjacent wall is an ad-hoc picture of weeds I took in our local park trying to capture some of the wild textures. I have also printed off some Polaroid sized detailed studies I made of flowers during lockdown.

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In picture frames I have framed some pressed flowers, a Man Ray photograph of Dora Maar (I loved the Maar exhibition at the Tate this year, it was the last I saw before lockdown). On the chimney breast wall I have framed a beautiful black and white shot of Villa Malaparte on Capri (the island where we got married) from a Francois Halard book and I have brought up my Liza Giles abstract with greens to take centre stage, it is gorgeous against the Smoke Green walls.

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I still have one or two small decisions to make, I’m not sure the built in cupboard should be School House White and I’m also contemplating painting the skirting boards. But for now I am very pleased with the updates in here and I can now see this space working long term. What do you think? 

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