"Nate Nagel" wrote in message
...
A while back I had to demo a kitchen cabinet to allow a new fridge to be
moved in... I was in a time crunch and didn't have time to go to a real
paint store that day so I went to That Orange-Colored Store and had them
mix me a quart of paint. I took with me a vent grille that had been
painted over to color match. The guy tried, and even wasted a quart on his
first try when it came out too dark (color is a flat white tinted slightly
blue) second try looked good in the store but when I painted the wall it
ended up slightly more brownish-grey than the rest of the wall. (I also
used almost the whole quart just to cover the area that was behind one
large kitchen cabinet...)

Unfortunately this @#$@#$% color is on about half the walls in my house,
and I have a couple other little areas that I'd like to address (changing
light fixtures in living room and removing mirror over mantel; repainting
ceiling at top of stair landing where it was badly prepped; painting
kitchen ceiling where I demo'd an ugly fluorescent fixture and never
patched/painted the ceiling) but we're not quite ready to repaint any
whole rooms yet. So I would really like to have a couple more quarts of
paint matched to the existing so I can keep doing spot repairs as I get
motivated and not have the house look all ghetto and have primer spots all
over the darn place until whatever room gets a full repaint.

Today I had a dentist's appt. in the AM so I left early and hit the
closest "real" paint store and brought the same vent grille with me. They
"matched" it while I was visiting with Dr. Hook and I picked up two quarts
(they used Benjamin Moore base.) I just opened one and spread a little
paint on the corner of said vent, it looks like a pure white in
comparison. Not even anywhere near as close as the paint I got from HD.

The few areas I've used the HD paint don't look awful, but it's obvious
that there's a paint mismatch. Is that about the best I can hope for (in
which case I should go back to HD and get a couple more quarts of the same
thing I got last time,) or should I take everything back to the real paint
store and let them try again? I realize you can't see what I'm working
with so you can't really say "that's about as good as it gets, you're
being too picky, just deal until you repaint" or "you can do better than
that, you've just had bad luck with paint guys" (but I guess that's kind
of the feedback I really need)

Not sure if posting pics would help, but if it would, I can take a pic of
the last little spot I did, around the thermostat on the kitchen wall...

nate

--
replace "roosters" with "cox" to reply.
http://members.cox.net/njnagel

Paint is a bitch. Even if you do save those things they put on the top of
paint cans stating exactly how many parts of which color they put in it, you
can have another gallon made down the road, and it comes out looking
different.

This can be for several reasons:

The substrate. Putting it on different things. Different brands of
drywall. Kilz or no Kilz? Primer or no primer? Which primer? How long
has it been there, and how much UV rays from the sun has lightened it? If
it is in a kitchen or bath area, how much oil or steam has changed the
color? Paint looks different after it has soaked into a wall for five years
than that which is a week old.

I have kept those little color things, and gone back later and gotten
EXACTLY the same mix, and painted it on, and it looks different than the
paint on there. Even clothes fade. Car paint jobs fade.

NEVER EVER EVER EVER LOOK AT PAINT UNTIL IT HAS DRIED A WEEK. It takes that
long to get even close to the color it's going to be.

It's not so much a mismatch, as you can get exactly the same paint mixed and
it won't match, it has to do with fading and lots of other factors.

Solutions: Do areas where the mismatching won't be obvious. Repaint the
whole thing from the get go. Change the color scheme so it don't matter.
If you are doing remodeling, prime properly, or Kilz, and then, it may take
two or three coats to get it exactly right. Lower expectations - what you
think is an obvious mismatch won't be noticed by others.

And lastly, consider the ambient light. Lots of paints and colors look
different when viewed at 9 AM versus 2 PM. On a sunny day, or a cloudy day.

HTH, just some things to ponder.

Steve, who knows paint will drive you batty, but only if you let it.