"SteveB" wrote in
:


"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.




Like to add, when touching up even from an original can, blend/fog by
running the brush/roller virtually dry way past the area being done.
Differences are harder to notice.