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.

There is a cupboard at the top of my home that is the keeper of many things. It is original to the house and is humble in its attic room design, as is the way of Georgian houses.  It is one of those places that could go quietly un-noticed.

I also inherited a glazed built-in cupboard in my sitting room. Not original but perfectly lovely in its mid-century way. It was one of those additions we could have ripped out but chose not to, rather keeping as much house history as possible. Both cupboards were quickly washed in white in order to pause,  and although completely fine just a little ‘meh’.

I’m so happy to share this progression with you.

Materiality, aesthetics, and practicality are the sensitive triangle of your needs that I think about all the time. I only want to make the minimum number of products with the best ingredients, but I also want them to serve the right purpose in your homes.

Last year we elevated our beautiful, breathable True Matt Emulsion to a bio-based formula. I’m super proud of this change, as we are the first British-made bio-based paint. As well as the environmental improvements in ingredients and source locations, the materiality and usability of the paint is so much more beautiful.

We happily introduce our bio-based Steadfast Matt Emulsion.

A simple and local recipe that is so very delicious and valuable. Ingredients and where they come from are at the root of why and how we make our paint. a generous use of a humble and lightly travelled group of ingredients, using hands and humans for other humans’ health.

We circle back to choices – tiny step changes towards better. Choosing to live better, buy better, buy less and encourage our minds to think progressively. There is joy in the agony of change.

A boy – 13 or so, cycling to school. Arms folded, rucksack flung, damp combed hair and an easy smile. Sitting in traffic I watched him roll through, completely confident in his mode and with flair to spare.

I wondered how long it took him to be gliding instead of wobbling. For the smile to slide in. The bouncing rucksack was slightly concerning but a bit of devil may care keeps our attention focused.

There is comfort in the consistency of cycles and familiarity. In knowing that we willingly choose some parts of life to remain steady. The same brand of tea, the same colour and cut of shirt – and sometimes the same paint colour. I think it is essential that we can rely on some parts of life to be unfailing. Lots of life fails us or we fail it.

This morning, teenagers were lolling at bus stops. Skirts rolled and fringes newly flopped. Small children gripping parents’ hands, new back packs and sparkly pencil cases ready. Today will be a day of days for all.  A shift of seasons, but a shift of place and space too. 

Inside my wonky childhood memory, we had twenty seven fruit trees in our back yard. I’m sure it wasn’t that precise number – likely more, but still there was an incredibly splendid feeling of towering trees and surging vines.

The abundance of the present

It is easy to be ensnared by the desire for more. More rooms, more money to buy more things to fill those rooms and more recognition for having said ‘things’. Sometimes this ‘more’ is thought of as abundant and to have less than this feels meagre.

It feels right to think of abundance at this time of year. A veritable glut of produce as well as high holiday consumption of a sort, mingling with holiday thinking time. There is nothing like hot weather to make you do nothing but think deeply.

Pleasure.

Colour can be a joyful and visceral delight. It doesn’t have to be anymore complicated, than that it makes you happy. It should bring you pleasure as well as comfort and safety. This is the heart of our Ice Cream. Equal parts contentment, joy and delight.