Lighten up Paint expert Lorna Hillhouse thought magnolia was a decorating disaster - until she moved into a nineteenth-century farmhouse. By Cate Devine

Lorna Hillhouse, owner of the largest independent paint merchant in Scotland, picked none of these. As soon as she'd finished renovating her home, she knew it had to be magnolia.

Every wall in her beautifully converted farmhouse nearDarvel, Ayrshire, is cream.

From the kitchen through to the sitting room, and from the lounge up to the bedrooms, the quiet calm of this most basic of shades serves to unify the rambling nineteenth-century house and its stunning 21st-century extension.

The original stone floors have been covered with beautiful hardwood oak - useful for cleaning when you have five lively dogs - while the window and door surrounds and fireplaces are waxed pine.

"I always said I'd never have magnolia in my house, " says Lorna, who owns Alexander Paints in the west end of Glasgow and South West Paints in Rutherglen. "It was actually meant to be just a base coat, but as soon as it was on it seemed perfect. It matches the wood so well and I find the whole place very relaxing to come back to after a hectic day at work."

The irony is that Lorna's previous home in Overtown, in the Clyde valley, was the exact opposite. It was a new house and the interior had been painted magnolia by the builders. Lorna hated it so much that she had it covered in every possible colour:

lilac in one bedroom, green in another, bright yellow in the living room and acid lime in the bathroom. "Modern homes take colour better than old ones, probably because the rooms are smaller, " she says.

"I honestly don't think the farmhouse would take much. Also, you outgrow colours much more quickly than neutrals."

After just a short time at Crofthead Farm, where Lorna keeps four horses, five dogs and two cats, it becomes apparent that there's no need for loud colours indoors anyway - because there's quite enough coming in from outside. Within five minutes of settling into a squishy leather sofa in the lounge, which looks out on to the countryside through huge picture windows, you might see yellow sun shining in a patch of blue sky in the west, while steel-grey rain clouds gather in the east and a fine mist starts sweeping across the valley in between. Added colour is provided by the lilac coats of Lorna's two prize-winning mares.

"The sky changes so much here, " she says. "We're in a valley and we have our own wee weather pattern. Ayrshire can have rain while Lanarkshire has gales, but we might have sun. It's fascinating to watch."

The farmhouse sits in 60 acres of land, a major feature of which is the fabulous surrounding trees. They nod towards the north-east, having been trained by the south-westerly wind coming in from the coast, and provide an ever-changing spectacle of colour throughout the year.

Lorna, who is from Burnside in Glasgow and whose father was brought up on a farm outside nearby Strathaven, bought the house as a ruin three years ago. They spent a year having it renovated and extended, with Lorna's father taking on the role of project managerwhile she worked full-time in Glasgow.

Twelve Veluxwindows were installed in the sloping ceilings to help brighten what was a "dark and dingy" house. "The staircase was horrible - it was completely covered in gloss-green paint and green flowery paper, " says Lorna.

They also had to retile the entire roof with Spanish slate and replaster every room. A wall was knocked down in the kitchen to create a family room complete with a burgundy-coloured Aga, huge pine dining table, a cream Italian tiled floor and, of course, magnolia walls.

A central heating system was put in and an impressive new south-facing lounge room built on the site of the original front door and courtyard. A modern internal stained-glass window featuring a thistle, made by Fortress Windows in Motherwell, sits where the front door used to be.

The kitchen leads into a new purposebuilt utility room and then on into the tack room, from where Lorna can access the 10 stables that have been converted from cow byres. "I love the new layout because it means I can go and check on the horses at night without leaving the house, " she says.

Painted in jade green, the tack room is the only one in the large house to have any colour on its walls. It's for a practical rather than an aesthetic purpose, however: to hide the dogs'muddy paw prints.

So what has Lorna learned from her experience as a first-time renovator? "The importance of having a good team of workmen you can trust, " she says. This despite the fact that she almost fell through the living room ceiling when she stepped over a hole in the floor cut by the joiners and covered up with a piece of carpet.

All that remains now is to add a small conservatory next to the sitting room, so Lorna is just enjoying the fantastic results and concentrating on showing her horses.

Paint - especially when applied in flat colours rather than effects such as ragrolling ormarbling - has been enjoying a sustained revival in recent years. As a result, competition between suppliers is rife - Crown, for example, has a depot just 300 yards from South West Paints. But Lorna is proud that hers is the only bespoke service in Scotland.

"Lots of people are going for neutrals |5such as browns, beiges and creams at the moment, " she says. "People like them because they are easy on the eye and can make a room look larger. Also, I think there are too many colours to choose from and people get confused."Lorna also believes the revolution has been prompted by the spectrometer, the gadget that allows paint shops to "read" the colour off a piece of fabric. "But surprisingly few companies do sample pots, so for many people it's a relief to be able to go back to neutrals, " she says.

Alexander Paints, 66-70 Old Dumbarton Road, Glasgow, tel: 0141 339 4909.

South West Paint Supplies, 110 Glasgow Road, Rutherglen, tel: 0141 643 1691.