Helen wins 'Designer for a Day' competition

The lucky winner, Helen Davey of Cooden Drive, won a day with designer Wendy Newman, proprietor of 'Designer for a Day', after entering the competition which ran throughout the Observer group and received dozens of entries.

Helen said: "I was lucky enough to win a day with Wendy and I'd like to thank the Observer for the prize and say a few words about the great day we had with Wendy!

"My husband Stephen & I took the day off work to enjoy our prize and Wendy came along with lots of great ideas and colour schemes for our house.

"We hope to convert a junk room en-suite in our bedroom to a walk in wardrobe and buy a big round mirror to liven up the bedroom. We may lighten the dark dining room with her idea of painting two end walls in a different shade to the rest of the room.

"Wendy had ideas for our spare room, turning it into a sophisticated guest room. She advised us on our excess of pine furniture and we will now move some of it around and get rid of some pieces.

"It was mainly our lounge which we wanted to revamp and Wendy suggested bold colours for our three piece suite, perhaps a stripey sofa, and we are very excited by this idea and have already looked at loose covers.

"We also intend to install a wood burning stove to go with the more modern feel Wendy suggested, and a long sideboard to house all the DVD's etc.,currently in various locations around the room!

"All in all Wendy was very helpful and very pleasant which helped enormously, we all got along well and her general overview of our house will be very useful for a couple who love to redecorate but never feel we get it "quite right".

Wendy said she enjoyed her day with Helen and Stephen and since launching 'Designer For a Day' she has had lots of feedback from happy clients. Passionate about interior design Wendy said DFD is an affordable way to help prevent decorating nightmares:

"The idea is to bring interior design style into everybody's home. It's an affordable way to sort out interior dilemmas.

"It's ideal for anyone who doesn't feel confident about deciding on colour schemes; people who want to update a scheme; or people who simply don't know where to start.

"I'm down to earth and keen to incorporate clients' existing much loved items into a new scheme and I love giving tired furniture a new lease of life in a new setting, with a new cover, or a lick of paint."

For further information visit the website at: www.designerforaday.co.uk