Colour Selections - Take 1

Selecting the internal and external colours, fabrics, and materials should be fun, right?

Definitely. But sometimes it can get tedious and frustrating. And at other times, what worked well in your mind doesn't work well at all!

The display homes that we had visited gave us a good starting point, and hubby and I were lucky that for a few of the bigger selections, we were on the same wavelength.

We went into Spectra (Carlisle's colour selections centre) on our own one weekend to get an idea of what they had. As we've said in previous posts, its definitely worth visiting product suppliers' own display centres prior to making colour selections, because the range at Spectra is limited. If you don't really know what you're looking for, the colour selections centre will only give you limited choices.

It was well worth the visit, and it was nice to be left to have a look around on our own and in our own time. Even though they don't hold the full range of colours and styles available for each product that you are selecting, what they do have gives you a good enough starting point to then build on and play around with.

You can take away samples of laminates and paints, and take photos of everything else, and there is also the option to view the detailed list of inclusions of their display homes.

A few weeks later, we had our 'first' colour selections appointment. We were really looking forward to it, and felt quite well prepared. We had ideas in terms of general colour schemes for different rooms, and thought that we would draw on the advice and expertise of the Design Consultant to help fill in the blanks and challenge us to think outside the square.

It didn't exactly go to plan...

Not because the products and showroom were lacking in anything, but because we thought we'd be getting a lot more guidance from our Design Consultant than we actually got. We found that she didn't really give us any guidance or advise us of other options that were available to us. She  was lovely, but seemed disinterested in the whole process.

By the end of the day, we had selections down for everything that needed to be chosen, but we weren't entirely satisfied with some (a lot) of those selections. In particular, we weren't happy with the tile selections for the entry, bathroom, ensuite, powder room, and laundry. They were very safe - everything was white, cream, or beige. We didn't mind experimenting with colour, but we weren't made aware of our options.

It was a good experience to go through the process though - ike a trial run. We requested another colour selections appointment, and this time, we'd be much better prepared.