By the time we reached our dining room in the great house refurb that cost us all our money and most of our patience, we had lost a lot of steam. We'd spent more than we intended (as is usually the way) on issues we didn't know the house had, like its 150-year-old floor joists. So the idea of having people over, of cooking meals and hosting dinner parties, was not a scenario I could visualize, and the dining room got de-prioritized.
'Let's just paint the walls,' I said to my husband, who was as equally at the end of his tether as I was. 'It'll be cheaper and easier than a mural, and if we go for a rich, dark color it will still feel like a sophisticated space.'
