A period house in Shepton Mallet

Shepton Mallet, Somerset

This is the project people mention. The house had every period feature worth having — flagstone floors, exposed oak beams, stone fireplaces, a proper entrance hall — and all of it had been quietly neutralised by earlier owners.

We went the other way. Deep teal in the principal bedroom behind a bone-inlay four-poster; navy in the drawing room so the open fire and the bookshelves read as warm rather than dark; aubergine on the hall dado above the original flagstones. The rooms that people expect to paint white are the ones that took colour best.

The bathrooms hold the line between old and new: brushed brass and dark marble in the en-suite under an arched window, and a cooler white marble shower room with a herringbone floor where the architecture was plainer and could take something more contemporary.