Freshening up our home with Colour Life Painting

Are you looking for a painting company that is reliable, provides great colour advice and gets the job done perfectly? Then you need to get Colour Life Painting out for a free quote! North Shore Mums Founder Rachel Chappell used them to freshen up the walls of her home, and can’t wait to recommend them to North Shore Mums…

When it comes to any kind of home renovations or work around the house, we usually outsource – basically because we know the experts will get done properly the first time.

However, painting has usually been something we’ve tried to do ourselves. Over the years, if we ever wanted to paint a room, hubby would take the job upon himself – either doing it after getting home from work, or at the weekend. And it’s one DIY thing that he does very well. With a degree in fine arts, he has always taken great pride in getting the coats right and the edges neat.

For the last few years, we’ve been wanting to paint our bedroom, the playroom, office and lighten up the passageways, but it just hasn’t happened. With increasingly busy weekends combined with pure parenthood exhaustion, we finally realised that we’d never tick ‘painting’ off our To Do list, and that it was time to outsource. I only wish we’d done it sooner!

Enter Colour Life Painting. From the very first moment I spoke to the owner Sam on the phone, I was impressed. We had a detailed conversation about the areas that we wanted painted, and he gave me a ballpark quote over the phone. He advised the job would only take a team of three painters two days (how efficient!), the quote was right on the mark and he could book us in to start in two weeks time. Tick, tick, tick!

Choosing the right white… 

Our first main task was deciding what colours to choose.

We wanted to brighten up the dark passageways with a ‘brighter’ white from the creamier Antique White. After looking at about 10 different white swatches from the Dulux range (narrowed down from their huge selection), we first thought we wanted a colour called Lexicon. However, after telling Sam about our choice, he warned us that this particular colour is quite a ‘grey’ white, and sometimes even looks like a very pale blue in some lights. Not the look we were after.

He suggested either Lexicon Half or Casper White Quarter. Lexicon Half was still a cooler colour, with a tint of grey – but not as extreme as the full Lexicon. And Casper White Quarter because it’s a bright white that’s slightly warmed by a tiny drop of ochre undertone. He spent a lot of time explaining the chemistry behind the colours (and all the different shades of white), so we could make an educated final section – Casper White Quarter was the decision.

Choosing some colour!

From cushions and throw rugs, to water jugs and fruit bowls, aqua is definitely the accent colour in our home… so it’s no surprise that I wanted colours along the blue-green spectrum to feature on some of the walls in our home.

My first inspiration came from watching ‘Offspring’ and falling in love with Nina’s teal feature wall in her living area. I basically just love her style (both fashion AND interiors), and wanted to copy a similar look for our playroom. Despite googling (found this gem of an article into the rationale behind the interior), I was unable to find out the exact colour used. I emailed the photo to Sam from Colour Life Painting, who said he’d ask his colour consultant to see if they could work out what the colour was, but that ‘viewing colours on pics and screens is very different to actual, which makes matching this way very difficult.’ Totally understand!

Nina’s child-friendly living area in ‘Offspring’

But the confirmation for my love of teal was reaffirmed, so it was back to the swatches to decide. After much deliberation, we finally chose Turquoise Mist for the playroom (which is more of a bluey aqua) and Carnelian (which is closer to Nina’s wall colour) for the feature wall in our bedroom.

Getting ready

The weekend before the painters arrived, we spent a few hours ‘prepping’ – taking down paintings, filling holes, removing books from the bookshelf. We wanted to make it as easy as possible for them to swoop in and get started straight away.

On the job

As promised, the team of three painters arrived promptly at 7am on a Monday morning, and set up an area on our front deck to store all their gear. They were meticulous in their preparation – carefully moving furniture into the centre of each room and covering it with drop sheets, as well as sheets on the floors too.

And then they quietly got to work! Meanwhile, I set up office in the lounge (at the other end of the house) and continued working from home. The second day my toddler wasn’t at childcare, so I made sure we made ourselves scarce. But by 2pm, I got a call from Sam to let me know they were finished and packing up, so I eagerly raced home to see the end result.

I couldn’t believe how much they accomplished in just two days – three rooms, a hallway and all the skirtings. A job of this scale would have take us weeks (if not months) to complete. Or, if I’m honest, it probably would never have happened.

The quality of their work was outstanding. The skirting boards were painted with complete precision, the colours looked great, and there wasn’t a drip mark to be found anywhere. I’m a very happy customer!

If ‘painting’ has also been on your To Do list, I’d highly recommend Sam and his team at Colour Life Painting. He’s happy to pop over to do a free quote, so give him a buzz!

If you’re looking for a reliable and high quality painting service, give Sam from Colour Life Painting a call on 0424 089 747. You can also find them in the North Shore Mums Directory.