Decorating and buying new settee etc ?

I'd start with sofa etc. Then go for a neutral but not too pale carpet, then walls and accent colour for soft furnishings. That's the way I'd do it anyway

No good asking me no matter how hard I try, everything ends up beige! I would love a good sense of colour matching but the only thing I seem able to do makes everything drab. Good luck with your choices loopy. Hope you like what you end up with

I need an adviser!
Mostly beige at present, DD says it's a mundane and boring magnolia .....
Have seen a sofa upholstered in very dark purple with a fine check on line - but it's in Birmingham and I'm not!
Oh dear, this could well take some time. I tried doing a pin board and have far too many 'pins'!

Start with the walls, duck egg blue sounds good, then the carpet, what is practical colour, shades of brown or wood or laminate flooring.Then the sofas, in whatever shades you like and what would go with those colours, cream, grey, a paler duck egg, a deeper duckegg, and lastly soft furnishings curtains, cushions, bits and bobs.?

i suggest you define which style suits you, the house and the room. Modern, Classic, Scandi etc. buy some home mags or look online for inspiration (Houzz, Pinterest) cut out or save some ideas you like before buying anything. You may find some colours/styles jump out at you then you have your theme. If you can, make a mood board of ideas with pics and samples - paint, wallpaper, carpet, cushions etc. to see how it all hangs together. Adapt or paint furniture if you wish but get rid of anything that does not fit with your scheme. Sounds exciting - good luck.

Just look on the John Lewis website. Where else? (Carpet and sofa) Go in shop to actually look and buy.

And get Dulux colour cards for paint schemes.

I'd make everything permanent in neutral colours like carpets and sofas and put my colour in in accessories, curtains, blinds etc that way if you get fed up its easy to change and cheaper .

Your colour scheme idea sounds lovely, I really like duck egg blue .

Pictures at the end please :-)

Definitely look at Pinterest and paint company websites for living room ideas. Are there any styles you like? I designed my room around some retro curtains which I loved. It's now got a definite midcentury / contemporary look. Y

What a gift to be starting from scratch with everything new! I'm going to have a new bathroom and en suite shower room and I'm going to visit some new houses and see what their designers are putting in those. Is that an idea?

I paid £4.25 for a magazine which said kitchens and bathrooms and there's very little about bathrooms, so that was a waste of money. Get some free catalogues from M&S, Multiyork, J.Lewis, Next Home etc and cut out what you like. Create an ideas bank of colours, fabrics, furniture, light fittings etc to give you an idea. You don't have to buy them from those stores, you're just information gathering. I'd love to be doing it!

Good luck!

Thank you everyone ?
We've lived with others' cast offs for 39 years, there's nothing wrong with that of course but I've never been able to have just what I like, hence the dithering ?
Very exciting but rather daunting!

My decor was cream/beige for years and years, practical and easy to freshen up. Last summer we did a big turnaround and went for greens.
Walls are a very pale sea spray colour (sort of duck egg blue) with one wall in a deeper tone.
Flooring is beech wood.
Sofa and chairs are brown leather - too good to replace.
Using a beech blanket box as a coffee table, it holds all sorts, great storage.

In a factory shop I bought a plaid fabric that had duck egg blue/a little touch of wheat colour (to go with the leather suite and the existing curtains that are vast and couldn't afford to replace) and a dressmaker made me 6 cushions of varying shapes, squares/oblongs. There was masses of fabric left which she finished off to make a large oblong tablecloth and a throw. Dressmaker charged £40 to include threads, piping the cushions and zips.

Also lift out ornaments etc and only put back what works in your new style/colour scheme. And less is sometimes more

I'd start with the sofa and chairs. They have to fit the room, be comfy, you have to love them. Then it's the flooring.

Curtains - you have to love them and I think it's easier to choose fabric and have a dressmaker make them up to the exact length, width, the type of heading that you really want.

B & Q Paint Department can use a computer to match and mix a colour from your curtains if you wish, as well as having hundreds of test colours.
Wall colours can easily be chosen after living with a few walls painted from tester pots.

And a biggie... made a great difference...... was getting away from silk finish emulsion paint and using the matt emulsion. Much more modern looking.

Love N&G's idea of starting with neutrals and brightening them up with colorful accessories! That way, you can change your color scheme, if you want, as she says, and even go seasonal, as I love to do, or dress it up for holidays (orange and yellow accessories for autumn, for example, or red and green around Christmastime).

It's up to you, of course. Have a ball!

loopylou we are doing the same! Have ordered the settees and a chair but now cannot find curtains to tone in (and a limited range of carpet colours)!
As we are doing hall, stairs and landing as well, it has to be done in a logical order, but what is logical?
We have got rid of a coloured suite and are going more neutral, perhaps a darker carpet instead of the pale beige. (stains keep coming back however much i shampoo). And what furniture and junk to keep?
The plasterer is here so I am off to JL in a minute.

I'm with jings!

Just look on the John Lewis website. Where else? (Carpet and sofa) Go in shop to actually look and buy
It doesn't always work though - not a single pair of curtains which match the new suite and it's too late to change that. Only made to measure at about £1,400!
M&S don't stock ready-mades in the shops any more (had to make room for the bank!).

The carpets looked good in JL though.

It's no good picking what you like, you have to choose what the designers and manufacturers deem is fashionable at the moment! ie beiges with lilac, mauve, duck egg blue and lots of pink and red of all shades (which I am getting rid of, always out of step with fashion me).

I'm getting rid of beige and red come hell or high water too!
I'm having the same thing Jalima, what I like and what's actually available aren't particularly compatible at the moment

I think it is quite important to consider the tone of a colour. Too many pale tones can make a room bland.

The duck egg/ soft green sounds lovely with the dark dresser and rosewood colour. A sofa colour/pattern that bridges the two extreme tones might work.
Then I'd opt for light coloured curtains, patterned or plain depending on the sofa. Bringing the dark tones in with soft furnishings.

Have fun in the choosing.

X

I have been walking round all day with a swatch from the new settees in my handbag, thinking I should have picked something else.
Just ordered curtains online, so I will have to wait and see if they are the right awkward shade and a good fabric.

JL did give me two small carpet swatches though, which was helpful. Last time I made all the curtains but they are just too heavy to struggle with these days even if there was any fabric in the right shade.

DD would be telling me that what we need is a 'feature wall'

There's a lot of plaid around and I do like the sound of your decor Coolgran (too late to change my mind now though). And yes, you're right, it doesn't do to be sentimental about ornaments, photos etc, just put back what works. I must minimalise or it will look like an old granny's house.

DD1 was looking for something to match her sofas , the curtains she chose were very expensive , but before she bought them , she was lucky enough to talk to an assistant who got the in house designer to help , she got good advice and her room is lovely , a bit like getting a personal shopper in the clothes department

It's amazing how few good ready-made curtains there are in the shops.

The made-to-measure fabric I liked was expensive and we have quite a lot of window area to cover.

Presumably they charge aggie or would they deduct the cost from the bill if you bought from them?

I've just had the fun of decorating our new home which was a completely blank canvas and am really pleased with the result.

I started with a mood board putting a few pictures cut out from magazines in the middle and splodges of paint colours from tester pots around the outside. I then pinned fabric swatches to the corners. This stayed with me throughout the build because it meant I could easily make changes if I wasn't sure about how something would work.

Pintrest is a great help and so are magazines. I ditched Country Living because it errs on the side of the ultra rustic which is fine if you want your new home to look like a shepherd's hut! There's a mag called 'Twenty Five Beautiful Homes.' which features homes of different styles and values and is full of inspiration because there is likely to be a featured home that matches your taste (if not your budget!)

If you are thinking of white walls, go for a milky white rather than plain white which can look dingy in shadow.

Like others have said, don't be afraid to ditch pictures/ornaments/soft furnishings that don't match your chosen colour scheme.

Mixing old and new pieces of furniture can really work. Our large mahogany wardrobe looks great against white walls and Duck Egg blue soft furnishings. I also upcycled my mother's pine Welsh dresser by painting it in Annie Sloan's Old White chalk paint. Looks great.

Have Fun!

We were lucky to find a local carpet store that would provide unlimited samples - as long as we returned them. It saved an expensive mistake! Our order was rough idea of colour scheme, then carpet, then sofas (took the carpet sample with us), then soft furnishings (taking carpet and sofa samples). Then we picked the emulsion as colour mixing makes almost anything possible. Delivery times allowed for the decorating before the new carpet and sofas arrived. It didn't turn out as we had originally visualised. It sort of evolved and we love it. I agree that it's not a good idea to automatically put back existing ornaments etc. Be brave. You will have something that is truly yours. I loved it all. Hope you will too.