Kevin McCloud’s colour advice

Go for dark, not for black

Kevin says: 'There's no such thing as true black. Everything is imbued with a drop of colour. A filament light bulb will make black paint paper-brown, a northern blue sky will turn it inky blue, a painted room will reflect its colour on to black and change it. So my advice is to give up and use a very dark colour instead, which will be more yielding and tolerant. Although the other colours in this room are riotous, the shade of blue is so powerful that it tells them to shut up and behave.'