Choosing paint colours

A colour on a printed card, a colour on a screen and the same colour on a wall are three different things. Paint dries to a different shade from the one in the tin, changes through the day as the light changes, and looks deeper across a whole wall than on a small sample.

The reliable method is the same for every room: narrow the choice on paper, buy tester pots, paint large samples, and look at them in the room itself in daylight and under the lamps used in the evening.

Light comes first

The direction a room faces decides how any colour will look in it.

  • North-facing rooms get cool, even light and no direct sun. Colours look greyer and cooler than on the card, and whites with a blue or grey base can look cold. Colours with some warmth in them hold up better.
  • South-facing rooms get warm light for most of the day, and most colours work. Strong warm colours can become overpowering.
  • East-facing rooms are bright and warm in the morning and cool from midday.
  • West-facing rooms are the reverse, and at their warmest in the evening.

Artificial light matters as much in a room used mostly after dark. Lamps described as warm white make colours yellower; those described as cool white or daylight make them bluer.

Testing

Tester pots are painted, in two coats, onto large pieces of card or lining paper — at least the size of a sheet of A4, and larger is better — and not directly onto the wall, where the old colour shows through and surrounds the sample. The cards are moved about the room: beside the window, in the darkest corner, next to the floor and the furniture. They are looked at in the morning, in the afternoon and under lamps.

Reading a colour card

Many manufacturers print a light reflectance value beside each colour: a figure between 0, which is black, and 100, which is pure white, showing how much light the colour reflects. It is a more dependable guide to how light or dark a room will feel than the name or the printed patch.

Colours are also catalogued in systems that are independent of any one manufacturer, among them the British Standard range BS 4800, the RAL system and the Natural Colour System. A reference from one of these allows a colour to be mixed by another maker, though matches between brands are approximate.

Sheen changes colour

The same colour looks darker and richer in matt than in silk, because a shiny surface reflects more light. A tester pot is usually matt, so a colour destined for silk emulsion or for gloss woodwork will look somewhat lighter in use.

Room by room

  • Small or dark rooms. Pale colours reflect more light, but they do not make a dark room bright; a room with little daylight often looks better in a deeper colour chosen on purpose than in a white that turns grey.
  • Ceilings. White raises the apparent height. Carrying the wall colour onto the ceiling lowers it and removes the dividing line, which suits rooms with sloping ceilings.
  • Woodwork. White gloss is the convention. Painting skirting boards, frames and doors in the wall colour makes a room look larger and calmer.
  • Halls and stairs are seen from every room that opens off them, so the colour has to sit with all its neighbours.

The move away from grey towards warmer neutrals is described under beyond greige.

Painting before a sale

The advice usually given to sellers is to repaint marked or strongly coloured rooms in pale neutral colours, so that viewers notice the room and not the decoration, and to attend to the front door, which is seen first.

Fresh paint is not a remedy for a defect. A stain from damp that has been painted over tends to return, and a seller remains obliged to answer the buyer's enquiries about the property truthfully.

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