Atelier Ellis makes beautiful, breathable, bio-based paint to help people tell their story of home

I asked my husband to ponder his perfect day.

I wanted him to conjure a portrait of home and homing in.

I asked him this particular question, as we have recently moved back to London after three years away. Three years of not London, not countryside either, but small city or big town living. Like falling in proper love, we keep feeling amazed at how lucky we are to be back.

A small wooden house in a new suburb, on the edge of a ‘big’ city. Three kids, a dog, many cats, and a single mum working three jobs to keep our roof safe and warm. A pot-bellied stove for perpetual soup (and heat), twenty-seven fruit trees and a playhouse for mudpies and decorative exploits. Scrappy countryside, mostly peripheral towny. It was bike ride to swimmable water and the fish and chip shop, and an hour bus ride to anywhere vaguely cosmopolitan.

Food has always been a big part of Atelier Ellis – the naming of colours and their relationship to living especially. Because I believe most goodness happens around the table. We eat, we Pinterest, we talk and we dream. A slab of wood and legs mean life happens here.

High summer, holidays taken, waters swum. Homes are ruffled, a little messy even – things are not guest-level best. These last few weeks of summer are for roaming around – out and about, but also at home. The shuffling of crockery and furniture, a repainted front door – the annual combat to coil the hose.

This can be a time we feel slightly dissatisfied with what we have – or don’t have.  We tire of what we already own. A rising sense of an unfulfilled desire. A new bed will solve ‘x’, two new lamps ‘y’. It’s normal to desire new things for home – it is our cradle. We want it to show ‘this is who we are’.

Close your eyes.

Place yourself inside the happy polaroid snaps of your early childhood. A meandering medley of moments and days of simple childish pleasure. This is the world we made when we only did things that felt right. Within these glimpsed sepia images, you will find yourself now.

Like many of you, I live in a very old house. It is a townhouse, with a basement kitchen and vaults. Because of its age (1766) combined with an inherited ‘modern’ decorating approach, it had and felt damp. 

Hands up if you know this feeling. It’s hideous.

Walls were painted with acrylic paint or covered in vinyl paper. It had very poor heating, blocked up fireplaces and windows that didn’t open. Plus a few decades of no maintenance. It wasn’t fall-down terrible, just grim. If I was a rooky restorer, I may have been led down the damp course, stain blockers, ‘that’ aisle of the DIY store, and re-plastering route. Using chemicals and intervention where it wasn’t needed. 

I am invited into people’s houses to help make it into their home. Weaving a new story that is unique to them and them only. The building itself has usually stood for many people before the them, and although it may need to stretch or flex, someone else will follow behind with their own dreams of ‘home’. Proof that decoration is, in fact, a love letter. 

Walking over and around the wet Autumnal streets, great spots of golden light and glowing embers fall out of windows.  Grey months scurry on, bloodshot with sunrises and sets the colour of scarlet wine.

Flowerbeds have languished, red climbs out of the beech trees and the Hunter’s moon rises. Red lips and rosy cheeks replace ruddy apples and juicy tomatoes. The palette of life changes to one of glittery, sharing space with glowing.

We know that there is magic in the world. It is easier to feel with the smaller things in life. A magnificent cup of coffee, the first December box of Quality Street, Christmas reindeer antlers on your Labrador…..

We know that there can and should be magic at home. A feeling of shelter, goodness and it being your safe and rightful place. It is a difficult feeling to name, but we should know when our home is exactly where and who we should be.

In the last week, I have been in more homes than usual. Helping close friends who are so very nearly at the point of colouring in their home. A new friend whose house is freshly renovated but needs a colour adjustment to make it feel right. An artist who wants colours to support her important exhibition, and a client who is crafting a magnificent yet deeply personal home.

People are often surprised that I actually know how to paint, and that I do paint a lot. 

I really, really love all aspects of it. I can twirl a sash brush with the best of them and roll (or preferably) brush a wall to perfection. On my wedding day, although a beautiful dress from egg was worn - I did find paint on my hands. Oh, how we laughed.

Yesterday I met and talked with someone I (and many of you) admire greatly. We talked of colour and paint and home. His home is very beautiful, but we still talked of getting it right and getting it wrong and being ok with all of this.

Some of us will have the good fortune of having a much bigger and fancier kitchen than others. That’s ok. Your street may be in a better postcode, but you have a tiny garden, or you may have an enormous garden on a perceived shabby street. That’s also ok.