Another day, another Farrow and Ball paint swoon. This time, its Stiffkey Blue, a new addition to the range in 2013. Apparently, it is reminiscent of the extraordinary colour of the mud found at Norfolk Beach. It all started when salvagesister sent me this pic from the Sunday Style magazine. ‘Move over Downpipe’, it declares. (Unless, like me, you know every colour on the F&B chart, this quote won’t make much sense. If so, get with it people.)

Of course, I do everything the Sunday Style magazine suggests, being a thirty-something middle class hipster, so off I duly went to purchase this ‘on-trend’ blue. Getting started is always the tricky bit; those first few strokes are invariably met with immediate disgust, or a tentative ‘hmm, maybe…’ In this case, the previous nondescript pink wasn’t hard to beat. However this depth of colour, in a sunny porch, did create some initial jitters. The original plan was to off-set the intensity of the colour with this patterned roller, an idea I plagiarised from the BBC series The Great Interior Design Challenge. The cream on blue tussock pattern seemed a pretty theme for an entrance hall.

Alas, 3 coats later and I found myself quite taken with the sumptuous blue. The vintage mirrors bring in a lot of extra light, and offset the colour well. It doesn’t seem an intuitive choice for a porch but somehow it works. Either that, or its just a cover story for an insidious spring laziness….

…plus the desire to crack on with other spring-y things, like buying Marguerite plants and putting them in enamel bread tins.

My next project will be rather more epic, namely painting the living room. I have my heart set on pink, but jeez am i having trouble finding the right shade. I’m looking for a dusky, mid-tone, deep pigment, grey-pink. So nothing too specific, right? Such a colour does not exist, except in clothing, of which i have an abundance. F&B have nothing remotely akin, hence my great love affair has suffered polygamy at the hands of Fired Earth. But oh, their pinks! According to the aforementioned supplement, ‘pink is the colour”. Appaz.