Hello headers13, Looking nice! Not much of a mess at all! Normally I'd suggest the idea of dark chimney breast and lighter walls.. Since you have dark cabinets going in then perhaps consider the other way around.. Usually alcoves are better lighter as they then look further away.. Chimney breast to the fore.. Standing out with a beautiful mirror.... I normally don't recommend shelving in alcoves either.. Just a personal taste.. However.... What about approaching it with the idea of scale colouring.. with dark at bottom and working it's way lighter up the shelves.... So you could have dark chimney breast and dark bottom shelves and gradually take the shades up till you get to a creamy white at the top... Ceilings are really gr8 in Whitening by Little Greene.. It would give it a different feel and this style of painting is really in.... You can do it with walls too, see image... Also to lighten the look of the shelving... consider darker and fuller shelves at the bottom and lighten towards the top... This creates the idea of openness with the shelving, thus giving the fireplace the focal point it deserves... : ))

Light colours always help to make a garden pretty so maybe try a pastel colour. I'm personally in love with a sort of light mint colour, this works really well with white (but any pastel will) cornflour is nice too for gardens as it is more of a contrast to the leaves. Growing a climber up some trellis on the wall might be an idea too, honeysuckle smells very sweet and attracts butterflies but any climber again will work. I have attached the mint colour I meant just for clarity, a word of caution would be that it can look a little clinical so to be used in moderation.

Sal, Your kitchen looks beautiful! Its such a pain having to choose colours but I guess its definately worth it at the end. Going to order some test pots today and try as suggested. I like the feel mellow mocha gave to your kitchen - bounces back light and the contrast on the other side of the wall - the copper blush! Looking at doing something similar but want whatever colour I choose to flow through our lounge (its open plan) without 'breaking' the feel- if you get what I mean! Thanks, will defo post pics once done.

The last time I needed to do the "swatches on a wall" thing it was in a room that had been painted a bright daffodil yellow. I had my doubts anything less than three coats would work, but nonetheless, this is what I did: first, we mapped out a section on the largest blank wall and painted it with a no-bleed primer, so as to have as neutral a background as possible. Then - as we had narrowed our selection down to three shades - we painted each shade in a column as long as we could fit in the space, with the white primer sectioned between each column. After a few days, we both agreed that one color worked better than the other two - and that's when we ordered the paint. It was the most successful change-a-color project we ever did. It's somewhat fiddly, and getting the three small sample cans plus the primer wasn't cheap (but not terribly expensive, either), but I feel we were well repaid by not painting the entire room only to find the color we ended up with didn't work. I've never been able to visualize color from the small samples or cards you get at the paint store, and I wouldn't be able to envision a whole wall, let alone a room, from a 12"x12" square. The larger samples we painted, though, did the trick for me. p.s. And painting over our test swatches was no problem. We knew we'd have to use two coats on the walls to get rid of the yellow so no tinge remained, and using two coats covered our sample columns as well as the primer beneath - you cannot tell we ever tried the samples before we painted. ;-)