Start with the Light, Not the Colour Card

Traditional townhouses were built for a different way of living, and their light tells you plenty before you open a single tin. On Durham's narrow streets, front rooms often take a soft, cool light that flatters deep colours but leaves pale greys looking washed out and slightly sad. Rear rooms facing south or west carry warmth for most of the day and can take stronger, cooler shades without turning gloomy.

Walk the house at three different times of day before you decide anything. Note which rooms feel cold at eight in the morning and which are glowing by four in the afternoon. Halls and stairwells are almost always the darkest spaces in a townhouse, and they deserve warmer mid-tone colours rather than the bright white so many period homes end up with. A soft stone or muted ochre will keep a north-facing hallway welcoming instead of clinical, and it will make the original joinery look intentional rather than overlooked.

Learn the Original Palette Before You Override It

The great myth of period decorating is that Georgian and Victorian interiors were white. They rarely were. Interiors of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were painted with earth pigments — ochre, umber, red and yellow iron oxides, lamp black — mixed into distemper and limewash. The results were chalky, earthy and often surprisingly bold: slate blues, olive greens, terracotta pinks, deep brick reds and a whole family of stone neutrals.

Dig for evidence in your own house. Original skirting, the back of a shutter, a patch of plaster behind a radiator or the underside of a window board can all reveal earlier schemes. Even in a townhouse that has been repainted many times, the architraves often hold a ghost of the original colour. Choosing something in that family — even loosely — means your rooms sit naturally alongside the cornices, panelling and shutters rather than fighting them.

• Halls and stairwells: stone, buff, muted sage or a soft ochre to lift light upwards.
• Drawing rooms: duck-egg blue, pale grey-green or warm off-white with a deeper complementary trim.
• Dining rooms: oxblood, forest green or slate blue for candlelight and evening shelter.
• Bedrooms: calmer, softer tones that let shutters and cornices do the talking.

Put Deep Colour Where It Earns Its Keep

The instinct to brighten everything is understandable, but a townhouse rarely benefits from being uniformly pale. Deep colours are at their best in rooms you use in the evening or in spaces you pass through rather than work in. A dark hall that leads into a lighter drawing room creates a sense of arrival, and it disguises the scuffs that hallways always collect.

Height matters too. In a room with a high ceiling and tall sash windows, a deeper shade on the walls will pull the proportions together and stop the space feeling cavernous. In a smaller back bedroom or a box room, keep at least one plane light — ceiling white, pale floorboards, a light-coloured linen curtain — so the deeper walls read as cosy rather than cramped. Painting a ceiling in the same tone as the walls works beautifully in a moody dining room and very poorly in a low-ceilinged landing.

Introduce Modern Accents with Restraint

Heritage schemes do not have to be a museum piece. A single contemporary note will make the whole room feel current rather than themed, and it is usually more effective than a wholesale modern palette. Think of it as seasoning: a charcoal chimney breast in an otherwise stone-coloured room, a soft clay pink on the inside of a window reveal, a muted navy on a single run of bookshelves.

Keep the number of colours in each room to three or four and let one of them be clearly modern. Deep inky blues and clean greys sit comfortably beside traditional stone and ochre because they share the same muted quality. What tends to jar is saturation — bright pillar-box reds and acid yellows were not part of the historic palette and rarely flatter old plaster.

Choose Finishes That Survive Daily Life

Colour is only half the decision; the sheen level changes everything. Flat matt finishes look exquisite on imperfect period walls because they absorb light and soften lumps and bumps, but they mark easily in busy areas. A low-sheen or washable matt in halls, kitchens and bathrooms gives you most of that softness with far more resilience.

• Walls: matt or washable matt for a heritage feel; avoid high gloss unless you want a deliberate contrast.
• Woodwork: eggshell or satin on skirting, doors and shutters — hard-wearing and easy to wipe.
• Ceilings: a chalky matt in an off-white or a tint of the wall colour, never brilliant white on old plaster.
• Kitchens and bathrooms: moisture-tolerant finishes, and consider panelling painted in eggshell to protect lower walls.

Test Properly Before You Commit

Buy tester pots and paint generous A2-sized patches on at least two walls of each room, then live with them for a week. Look at the colour next to your flooring, your curtains and the view through the window. Check it under a lamp in the evening and again in daylight, because townhouse rooms change character completely between morning and dusk. A shade that reads as soft green at noon can turn distinctly grey by six o'clock, and only a week of watching will tell you whether you can live with it.