What’s the general consensus on how paint really looks on the wall compared the the tiny swatches?
I’ve had two pros give conflicting opinions. One says, the paint is always darker on the wall, and the other says it will always look lighter.
My wife and I are going around on this, so to her dismay, I said “let’s ask my internet friends”. She didn’t like the sound of that, although she can’t argue that we have got some great ideas from here, and learned a ton!
(FWIW, my home is new construction with lots of natural light.)
Aaron
Edited 10/25/2007 10:01 pm by CRF
Replies
I don't use tiny swatches ;o)
The final paint always seems to look like the large painted samples I use.
Jeff
BN Moore has a color wheel now in the paintstores that has a few hundred olours for samplingall in tiny 2oz containers. With a foam brush you can cover a decent size wall sectionbut you should noit let some customers know that. I once spent a day rinsing brushes and painting about 60 colours in seven or eight rooms so they could pick.Then, when you have four shades of blue in a room and they say - "that one", try to remeber which one that was....LOL
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Paint the number of the paint below the sample. And don't put them close to each other, as someone else said.Our B-M store has larger chips (about 4" X 6"). When we narrow down the choices we get the larger chips and tape them to the wall. If we want multiple colors, this allows use to see how they will look next to each other. Plus the chips have the paint number on the back.Now if we could just get the paint store to mix what we ask for...
I do similar now. That day was a madhouse with ...nevermind - but I had been placing the little sample jar under where I painted each swatch, but between the two owners and the designer, they were grabbing up jars and "let's try this over in that room..."I had actually spent the night before painting on 9x11 cardstock to tape to walls, but then come their appearance, they wanted larger sample right on the wall of certain colours
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Depends some on which colour and texture you are trying to use. The swatch is just to get you in the ballpark.
A yellow gloss will almost always look more vivid on the wall
Reds need seven coats to cover and look close to the swatch unless you use a dark primer.
blues and greens can vary
All can reflect the tone of the floor colour to some degree which influences what your eye sees.
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I've had two pros give conflicting opinions. One says, the paint is always darker on the wall, and the other says it will always look lighter.
They both are right. Most of the time on interiors the paint is always darker on the wall and again most of the time on exteriors the paint will look lighter.
But again as Piffin said there are so many variables.
Edited 10/26/2007 12:03 am ET by TomC
We made large paint swatches of several colors on 24 x 30 sheets of foam core.
Like others have said, there are many variables, especially lighting and other colors in the room.
My experience has been that the color chips are VERY accurate. That is, if you paint the room and then hold the color chip against the wall, it will be very, very close. That's not to say that the perception of the color will be the same. When you paint a room in a dark color, the color tends to appear darker to the eye because there's so much of it. When you paint a room in a light/off-white color, it easily gets washed out by other colors in the room. I once painted a room in a medium purple and the ceiling in a light purple. It was hard to tell that the ceiling wasn't white.
Sheen is another consideration. Most of the chips are done in a flat sheen because it yields a truer color. Eggshell (the most common sheen for walls) will reflect a little more light and reduces the apparent color depth.
But all of this is very subtle and subjective. The best bet is to try some samples. Do not place samples side-by-side on the same wall because each sample will affect the perception of the neighboring colors. Better to paint sample boards and tape them to the wall on at at time.
this was pretty much already said.
but in my experiences it seems (for the most part) the lighter tones went on "darker" and the darker tones went on lighter. but not always. other variables such as natural lighting, flooring etc can affect
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'snot how it goes on, but how it dries. I think the reds and beige tones change most in appearance as they dry.
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