My paint card arrived this morning (I hope all yours did too!) and although I'm a little bit in love with Sulking Room Pink and De Nimes, I'm fairly underwhelmed overall. I much preferred the Olive (archived now) to this new Bancha, which I think is too "green" (that said i'm not a green colour person, so that may be clouding my judgement), but I could warm to Treron. The neutrals are so samey - Jitney being a direct replacement for Archive (which I see has quietly been retired along with Smoked Trout if I'm not mistaken). And I'm totally unimpressed by yet another shade of white. I cannot imagine ever giving Rangwali house room. I think it's quite unsophisticated and garish, and could be quite cold looking. The two darker colours aren't my thing at all, but I could see the red one being popular in the right setting. I was also interested to note that they colour chart cover has had a slight make-over, moving from the ubiquitous grey, to grey and a browner colour. With the Dulux colour of 2019 being a warm brown colour, I am wondering if grey is now on it's way out? I did have a feeling it was on the wane. If that is the case, I suspect there'll be a lot of anthracite grey windows being painted in the foreseeable future and a lot of owners of dove grey and plummet kitchens asking how to repaint kitchen doors.

What a beautiful house. So pleased you have embraced the age and style of the house rather than deciding to ‘modernise’ it as so many posts on this forum want to do to their homes. The door is a lovely colour - agree with you about using that instead of the white on the surrounding woodwork - I’d use it on the inside of the door too. Crest idea is smashing. I think all it is missing then is some softening up ... I would add some beautifully simple planted larger tubs either side of the porch - I think the box look a bit too restrained & out of proportion - I’d go for white flowers spilling over the edge and silver foliage. Maybe something with height - olive trees? Bay ? Maybe echo the planting in window boxes on the ground floor cills (obviously without the trees!) ? White/silver planting looks smart during the day, but just glows in the evening & in artificial light so ideal at the doorway. More colourful planting would compete with the door, keeping the palette restrained would, instead, complement it.

Double post. Go here: https://www.houzz.co.uk/discussions/5706640/please-help-me-design-my-bedroom#n=0

Well, I think you need to design the garden with islands of plants and the gravel as a river flowing through is. This is why they have the larger stones, as stepping stones to cross the ‘river’. You could also use Azaleas, very Japanese and they can ope with sunny spots. They need acidic soil. Did you already have Pinus sylvestris? Think that‘ll go very well. But the most important thing is the island structure with the gravel river, I think. So I suggest you’ll lay a rope through your gravel to see where you would like your river to flow and then create a couple of planted islands, some large, some smaller, and go from there. There are creeping plants for sunny spots that can mimic the moss for example. And do see if you can incorporate a water feature. A tub dug into the ground to hold the water with a pump and a rock or bowl on top to pump the water through. Simple, but effective. You only need electricity. Or a sun powered pump.