WOULD-BE interior designers have been desperately seeking someone with the talents of television favourite Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen to rescue them from their magnolia walls and stencilled borders.

A course in interior design, in Spennymoor, was exactly what Claire Coverdale and Karen Surtees were looking for to put a little bit of colour back into their homes.

Mrs Coverdale, 43, said: "I am sick and tired of magnolia and cream walls and we were hoping this course would give us some inspiration.

"There is so much enthusiasm for the course and we are really geared up for it.''

But the paint brushes and ladders are still in cupboards after the course was left without a tutor, and Mrs Coverdale, Mrs Surtees and their 13 classmates are putting the decorating on hold until they can get someone to help.

Mrs Coverdale said: "We don't want to decorate until we start the classes because we might find that we could have done better or learn something else that we would want to try.''

Yesterday, the Adult Learning Centre in Spennymoor said there would be a happy ending and the course run by Bishop Auckland College would be running in January.

Helen Jeffrey, life-long learning co-ordinator for the Spennymoor Learning Town Partnership, said the college was able to rely on its partners to help with the provision of a tutor and one would be available in January.

Lynn Rocks, manager for Spennymoor Community Learning, said that the course had a tutor when it was first advertised but failed to generate sufficient interest.

She said: "Then we got enough people to go on the course, but the tutor had been moved elsewhere."