Art & HueNew View for Art & Hue
Now isn’t the time to go into all the details of the property selling and buying odyssey, purely because it’s too convoluted and dull to list every twist and turn, but the upshot is that it’s taken close to five years from thinking of selling on the South Coast to picking up the keys to the new house in the West Midlands.
Yes, just one month short of five years from intent to reality.
The saying goes that “nothing worth having comes easy” which is probably compounded exponentially when it comes to moving home.
Solidly built in 1964 (the satellite engineer wheezed “I think your house is made from granite”), some rooms were updated in the 70s and 90s.
There’ll be some work needed to restore the 60s aesthetic – but in a new way with a nod to the era, not a slavish restoration – although all decorating will have to wait.
After almost five years of humping boxes between four properties – from the East Sussex flat to a relative, then to a rental, then finally to the house – rest and recuperation is required, not just to recover but also to get to learn the house and how the light moves around it across the seasons.
As with any property, particularly an older one, there’s also general maintenance to be done first before even thinking to pick up a paint brush or order a lava lamp.
Whilst the previous, and only, careful owner has seemingly maintained the house well, there are still remedial and snagging details that came up in the survey which need attending to first – not exciting or worth photographing but necessary nonetheless.
The current thinking is a palette of yellow, aqua and think pink, with touches of orange, to complement the options from Art & Hue’s signature colours, in different proportions and tones depending on which room.
It’s also been impossible to resist creating rough layouts of potential pop art groupings, such as a prospective TV gallery wall with television-related prints around a flat screen above the fireplace, in the lounge including prints from the Colour TV and Studios collections.
The Samsung Frame TV lets you upload your own images to display as an artwork on the screen which is a neat detail but, if the Frame TV doesn’t make it on to the wall, and a Sony Bravia or other set does instead, the Sky box can also display an image from the phone on the gogglebox via the Sky app.
However, once the natural light has been plotted across the seasons, it may be the initial colour concept changes completely – but who doesn’t love a creativity-inducing aqua (which is somehow simultaneously relaxing, a seeming contradiction) so the hunt is on for paint colours to complement the new home.
Mulling over paints by Graphenstone, Farrow & Ball, Mad About the House, Edward Bulmer and Little Greene…
Paint charts have been called in from natural paint manufacturers (so no poisonous VOCs) and, once the broadband is finally installed to connect the house up to the world wide web on Halloween, more samples can be requested – from linoleums for temporary kitchen and bathroom tweakments ahead of any longer-term renovations, to samples of paint colours and light switches & sockets. (Thankfully there’s almost 80 GBs of rolled over mobile data to keep Art & Hue connected to print orders until the broadband’s installed.)
Whichever interior scheme is finally selected, a starting point can be the original mustard-yellow tiles which are used for the window sills in all rooms except the bathrooms and kitchen.
Natural paint charts by Graphenstone, Paint & Paper Library, Farrow & Ball, Mylands, Edward Bulmer and Little Greene so far…
When there are corners of the house that have been refreshed, they’ll be shared here on the blog and on social media (so do make sure to follow artandhue on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and now Threads for updates).
In the meantime, it’s business as usual at Art & Hue with no delays to print orders.
Art buyers shouldn’t have noticed any interruption to printing and posting orders over the past five years and four properties – three of the largest ever orders received in Art & Hue’s 10 year history were produced from a tiny box room in a rental – and, whilst there are still many boxes to sort through, printing and posting is ongoing and always takes priority.
Although an indulgent moment may be taken occasionally to inhale the new view that took five years to find.
