I’ll try and find some way of showing you this pallette, but for the time-being (and for the record), here are the paint colours we’ve decided on:

• Walls – Dulux Antique White USA – low sheen
• Woodwork – Dulux Antique White USA – gloss enamel
• Ceilings – Bristol Ceiling White
• Hamble’s feature wall – Dulux Elf Green – low sheen
• Front door – Dulux Red Letter Day – gloss enamel
• Pergola – Dulux Silk Stocking (charcoal grey with a touch of blue)

We haven’t decided on the exact colour of Booboo’s room yet – but she wants a blue-y mauve of some sort.

You know. When the new Ikea catalogue comes out.

I confess to being utterly hopeless over it. Every year I read and re-read it until it is pathetically dog-eared. And that’s in years when I’m not about to start furnishing a new home.

This year, it’s been going with me everywhere. On the train to work. To bed for pre-sleep browsing. Even to the loo.

The dreaming list so far includes:

• 11 x white Arlig doors to replace the beige ones in the kitchen
• 2 x Rubrik blackboard doors for the kitchen, for fun
• 2 x white Billy bookcases with glass doors for cat-proof bookshelves in the lounge room
• Lack shelf for above our bed (there aint no room for bedside tables)
• Meldal day bed for Booboo, in white
• Vestby wardrobe for Booboo
• Korall Bubblor doona cover for Hamble
• Bibbi Snurr doona cover for ‘Dino
• 2 x Isdans roller blinds (for the boys’ rooms)
• 3 x Iris roman blinds for the lounge and dining rooms
• Coffee table made from Vika Oleby legs and Vika Amon tabletop
• 2 x Merete curtains (in bleached) to replace the louvre doors on Dino’s built-in wardrobes
• Expedit bookshelf (on its side) for under Booboo’s windows

That’s it for the mo’ – we need to wait and see how things look in real-life spaces, instead of in the irresistably glossy pages of the Swedish bible.

Met the painters at 7 this morning to give them a key so they can get started. Even though he’d seen the place before to do a quote, the boss still wandered around the place saying “Gee…”

It’ll be a while before any colour goes on the walls though – this week they’re mainly tackling the numerous varieties of wallpaper.