Seriously...

[prosodic]

Does anyone else have this much trouble finding a paint color?

*scream*

This one isn't working either. Yes, I checked. It still more or less matches the color card. And while I think it pretty much looks like what I was expecting, Lance sees a purple tinge to it. And I can kind of see his point. It does look that way if the light shines on it a certain way or depending upon how thick a layer is slopped on the walls.

I think it's the walls that are the problem. Textured walls can create a difference in color.

This is insane. I guess I'm sticking with antique white. A very subtle tan/brown just does not exist in our world, apparently (we're not going with anything dark...Lance has this fear of medium/dark colors on the walls). All the colors we thought were right were either gold, pale pink or purple-brown in disguise.

So...the prep work has begun, and yet, no paint.

$12 spent on paint samples. Three small cans of paint going to waste. Not even sure where I can discard this. It's considered a hazardous material, so I can't just throw them in the trash.

I'm really getting pissed off. My mom can just go buy a color, slop it on the wall, and it looks fabulous. She doesn't even try out any samples first. I suck.

Comments

[onelargecat.livejournal.com]

Our professional painter held up paint chips (she had the whole book of paint chips, but obviously you could just get a bunch in the color ranges you're looking at) next to all the things in the room that they needed to go with. Like the granite on the countertops, the tile on the backsplash, the brick around the fireplace, etc. Then once she chose a few colors that went with those things, we selected the colors to paint from those cards.

And you can throw away paint. You just have to let it dry out first. So you can mix it with kitty litter or sand or something, or you can just leave it in a hot place (not as easily done in Seattle as in Houston, I realize!), until it hardens. Once it's hardened, you can toss it in with the regular trash. If you can't find a good way to harden it all in the can, you can always just paint newspapers or cardboard or something...just spread out the paint so it all dries, then throw everything away.

[prosodic.livejournal.com]

I've been finding though that the colors on the wall aren't quite like the ones on the chips. You can't see the purple tinge on the color card from the sample last night, neither can you tell that sample 2 had a pink cast to it, etc. So while those colors on the chips looked like they would go well with everything, they looked quite a bit different once they were up on the wall and they don't go with anything. Sample 3 actually looks most like the paint chip, but with a slightly purple tint to it that isn't obvious on the chip.

I think Home Depot actually had something you can mix with paint to dry it out. I'll have to take a look at it.

[onelargecat.livejournal.com]

If the color doesn't match the chip, then someone's not mixing it right. Really, though, I suspect it's just that those paint chips are so small that your eye can't see the underlying colors in them until you see them larger. Or next to something else, which is why it's good to hold the chips up to other colors to see how they go. It's more obvious that our (brown-ish) granite counter has green undertones when you see it next to green paint chips vs. brown paint chips, you know?

But if you hold the paint chip up to the color on the wall and it is NOT the same, then I think you just need to find another store to buy from, b/c the first one isn't mixing the paint properly.

[prosodic.livejournal.com]

Home Depot is the most guilty of this. The first 2 samples were from there, and neither of those colors really match the paint chips once they were up on the wall.

We got the 3rd sample from Lowe's, and it was close. I think it was mixed fine. It was just one of those situations where we hadn't gotten the paint chip previously to test it against our furniture. The colors we're picking are very light and very neutral, so they should go with everything. And we even stuck the chip into Lowe's light box to sample it with different kinds of light, and the purple tinge wasn't apparent.

We don't even have anything in our living room that's purple (or gold, or pink), so there is nothing to even bring out that color and really emphasize it. It's weird. The walls are currently painted off-white, so I don't think there's an issue of bleed-through or anything either. I'm at a total loss to understand it. If nothing else, the color we got last night should've had more of an orange cast to it, because it came from the shaded orange family.