A painting studio · Bellhaven & the sound · est. 2009
We will not leave your house smelling of solvent, your floors spotted, or your colour chosen by a stranger with a fan deck and a deadline. Every finish we sell is sampled on your own wall, under your own light, and signed off by you before the first gallon is opened.
What we do
Four crafts, one studio
Interiors in mineral matte
Lime and clay paints worked by hand in a cross-hatch, then burned in with a trowel — depth a roller cannot reach and a sheen that changes with the daylight. Living rooms, studies and any wall you have stopped noticing.
Spray-finished cabinetry
Cabinet runs tented and sprayed with a catalysed lacquer that cures factory-flat in a day — edges as crisp as the day the kitchen was delivered, in any colour you can name and a few you cannot yet.
Wallpaper, hung like fabric
Booked the pre-paste way, hand-trimmed at the corners, pattern centred on the chimney breast and matched at the ceiling within a millimetre. From grasscloth to hand-blocked prints we will source for you.
Colour & design
The consult is not an upsell, it is the method: large painted samples left on your wall for three days and three kinds of weather before anything is committed. You choose with your eyes open, in your own light.
Services
The finish library
01
Mineral matte
Lime-based, applied in two passes and softened while wet; chalky, deep and alive in low light. For rooms that get looked at more than scrubbed.
02
Tinted eggshell
The quiet workhorse: scrubbable, close-sheen, washable after a fortnight. Halls, kitchens and everywhere small hands travel.
03
2K spray lacquer
Catalysed and factory-flat for cabinetry and doors — cured hard inside a day, holding its sheen for a decade of keys and kettles.
04
Limewash & Roman clay
Trowelled texture with movement in it — feature walls that read as centuries-old plaster rather than this decade’s paint trend.
05
Grasscloth & paper
Natural weaves and hand-blocked prints, hung the slow way. We keep the offcuts so the day life happens to a seam, the repair is invisible.
Asked at nearly every kitchen table we sit at.
Fair questions
Why sample on my wall instead of a card?
Because a card is printed in ink under factory light, and your wall will be paint under your light at 7 a.m. in February. Three days of samples costs us an afternoon; a wrong gallon costs you the room.
Can we live in the house during the work?
Yes — rooms are tented with zipper walls and HEPA extraction, and we sequence the floor so your bedroom and kitchen are only ever out on the nights we said they would be.
What does the studio visit cost?
Nothing. August or Marion comes out, looks, listens, leaves sample pots. If we are not the right studio for the job we will tell you who is.
Do you paint exteriors too?
We do — the same discipline in 3-coat systems: full prep, spot-prime, bond coat, finish coat, sprayed and back-brushed. It is one crew for the inside and the out, so the trim colour always agrees with the hall.
How far out is the calendar?
Four to six weeks for rooms, six to eight for cabinetry sprays in damp weather. We hold a cancel list, and we never compress prep to fit a date.
Bring us a room you have given up on.
Tell us about the room and what it refuses to do. The studio visit is free, the samples stay on your wall, and nothing gets painted until you like what you see. studio@fernwoodpaint.example