Is your home in need of a little TLC? Are you looking to refresh the look of your living areas in time for the new year?

Well, we were looking to do exactly that recently and so teamed up with Dulux to bring a brand new look to our kitchen and utility room.

First of all: a bit of background for you. Since moving in a few years ago, our kitchen and utility room had been painted a fairly neutral colour (think dark cream verging into light yellow and you won’t go far wrong).

However, the utility room in particular had various scruffy patches that had been patched up and filled in without being properly sanded down and repainted, and when a shelf fitting came loose from above the radiator in our kitchen, leaving some holes that had to be filled in and repainted, we decided it was time to freshen up the look of a living space in which we tend to spend most of our time.

Why Dulux?

When you think paint, you think Dulux. It’s one of the most trusted brands in the UK and you really know that you can trust a product from them. Dulux are our go-to brand for paint when it comes to home decorating, for multiple reasons including versatility, size of range, and quality of finish.

Which colour?

With over 1,200 colours to choose from, we had our work cut out when it came to picking the right colour for us. With so many neutral tones going on in our house, we fancied something a bit different, but nothing too drastic, and definitely nothing dark.

We opted against cream or yellow tones, and instead looked towards blue tones. Blue can be a cold colour if not done carefully, which isn’t what you need from a family room that you want to be inviting and cosy.

We therefore decided to pick a lighter shade of blue that almost appeared white in tone before applied to the walls. The shade we chose was ‘Blueberry White’, a colour which, luckily for us, came in the exact finish that we wanted…

What finish?

For us, we knew we needed to strike a balance between aesthetics and practicality. We wanted our walls to look good, but we needed the paint we chose to be durable.

We therefore ordered our paint in the Dulux Endurance finish, a durable and, importantly for us, washable finish that makes it easy to remove troublesome marks and stains. With a one-year-old and three cats around, this was a huge tick in the box for us. In fact, this paint is 20 times tougher than the conventional finish from Dulux, and so perfect for anyone with young children. In short, this is a family-friendly paint that also looks fantastic when applied to the walls.

What about the painting process?

The most important part of any painting process, in my opinion, is preparation. Our walls weren’t in bad condition, but we did a bit of prep work with some filler in terms of filling in holes and cracks.

It was then time to sand down and then wipe the walls. I did this with a dry tea towel, mainly removing dust and cobwebs from the corners.

In terms of painting, we used the Dulux range of brushes and rollers. I hadn’t realised how crucial this would be to the process as a whole. The rollers applied the paint to the walls quickly and easily, with a really smooth finish, and the brushes hardly lost a single strand from start to finish.

We did our painting over four or five nights after our little girl had gone to bed, and so had to clean the rollers, trays, and brushes each night to make sure they were fit for use again. The Dulux Endurance paint came off really easily with cold, soapy water.

With Dulux paint, a little goes an awfully long way, and we only had to use one coat (Dulux recommend one or two coats) to make our walls look really good.

The finish

As you can see, the transformation of our rooms has been significant. Both rooms look bright and airy, but there is now a clear difference in feel between the kitchen and utility room area, and the other living areas of our house.

The blue walls attract light and don’t make the room feel cold in the slightest, even at this chilly time of year.

Dulux make transforming a room an easy and stress-free process, which is important if you have a young family and need to get the job done over several stretches of time.

You can see their full range of Endurance paints, along with more info on the benefits and qualities of the different finishes the brand sell online here.