Hallway colour crisis

I feel your pain OP, I have done similar where the colour over the whole walls looked very different than the tester. Don't know why people are giving you a hard time and saying you should have done it quicker and should have known better, honestly I don't know what is up with people! I'm not surprised it took that long, hall/stairs/landing is absolutely the worst room to do because of all the woodwork and awkward bit above the stairs, and because people have to keep walking through it. I mostly do my own decorating but I paid someone to do ours while we were away, worth every penny.

Anyway, repainting the actual walls won't be a huge task so if you really hate it I think you just have to do it. Don't know how much pink you need but we did ours Nutmeg White which I absolutely love. It's a warm neutral with pinky tones in it, sometimes it looks like a soft grey, sometimes more gentle pink. I'm attaching pics but they don't seem to pick it up all that well, it is slightly more pinky than that.

OP I've done literally the same thing, but wasn't even half as diligent as you with prep and testing haha. Went to B&Q, saw a sample swatch that I thought aligned with what I wanted and just went for it. 2 coats later and I hate it. I wanted white with a tiny touch of green, I've got a very minty, wintery green hallway now.

I was quite down about it and DH who initially didn't like the swatch sample anyway tried very hard to make me feel better about it, bless him. I'm going to give it a few months and re-paint in the summer I think, I just really don't like it.

I have had similar experience with Brewers where the colour I ended up was deeper than the sample. However I liked it so kept. I would normally say I don't like lilac but I actually do like your hall colour. But it's not the colour you wanted and if it really bothers you, I would repaint. Not sure if your DS is going to like pale pink either though.

It is really weird how light can affect paint colour. I've sometimes painted rooms and been aghast at the results, which look totally different - yet holding the sample card next to the wall verifies the colour match.

If I were you, I'd make it my own job to repaint the walls one weekend. Re the F&B colour you had your heart set on, you could use a cheaper colour match for the first layer and F&B just to finish it all off:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/home_decoration_pictures/5359061-the-great-is-farrow-ball-paint-worth-it-debate-results-of-experiment

And then, if the F&B colour looks shit too, then obviously you have to divorce so that you can go and live in a convent somewhere!

They've done something wrong mixing it, typed the wrong code in or picked the wrong colour. I'd ask for new replacement paint and compensation. Go back tell them you'd like a tester pot and then compare to your tin. Take the photos.

I’d swerve all soft pinks if you’re not getting good light.
we have a dark dining room with only borrowed light from the kitchen and I used stirabout. Beautiful and warm but no peach or worse, dirty pink tones. Try that, but just get the real thing. Getting a dupe is often a false economy.

Sadly not true. I painted my kitchen brilliant white and it looked blue, I had to paint over it. It was so blue I thought it must be the wrong colour paint, but no. North-east facing kitchen. Plays havoc with every colour I try.

And that can be determined through discussion, rather than a unilateral decision that will force a repaint.

I'm not saying don't repaint, but just consider how forcing his hand by painting a tester pot on the wall might cause arguments and tension.

They've spent 5 days getting it to like this, considering all that prep work has been done I'd guess maybe 2 days to repaint. Assuming two coats. That's a whole weekend gone

Totally agree. Repainting will be a doddle now you’ve done everything else.

I feel your pain. I painted my very large living room, it’s about 5m x 5m, Gentle Fawn - primer, base coat and 2 top coats. I wanted to love it but I really didn’t, it too had a lilac tint that wasn’t visible on the sample patch I painted. I agonised over it for a couple of days, got a friend round for her opinion and she instantly said “of course it’s lilac and it looks like an Essex boudoir. Repaint it right away and you’ll have forgotten the pain as soon as it’s done.” I did repaint and she was right. No way could I have lived with the lilac. So my advice to you is to just repaint it. But complain to Brewers so you don’t have to pay for the replacement paint. If you want Tailor Tack just colour match it, Brewers will have the code in their system as they sell F&B.

Surely it’s better to find a colour everyone likes though, instead of 2 family members liking it and 2 hating it?
I wouldn’t leave a colour in my house that I hated. My home is my sanctuary, I spend a lot of time in it, and to actively hate the colour of the walls wouldn’t work for me. My DH wouldn’t care if I repainted though.

Sympathies OP, the lilac colour looks identical to my bedroom walls after painting with Dulux Dusted Fondant. This picture shows what I thought I was getting. It could be the light in my room that distorts the colour but it's the same in daylight, artificial light and shade - I don't like it but can't be bothered changing it for now.

I’d second doing this. We had a dulux colour (also in hallway) that I was convinced wasn’t same as the tester we’d used. The place we bought it from agreed it wasn’t but said we needed to raise with dulux. From memory I had to send them brush samples from the tester plus the paint we’d used. They ended up confirming the “recipe” for a 5L tin was incorrect and gave us vouchers to buy replacement paint alongside details of the correct recipe.

You are right OP. It does look very different. Who cares if others like it if it's not what you want?

I painted my bedroom in Dulux blossom just a week ago, it looks nothing like your photo. And I added a bit of dark salmon pink to whoosh it up a bit...no idea why yours looks purple

I think it looks nice, but I don't have to live with it. Maybe go to Brewers and have a word?

Nothing worse than when you want something, put in time, money and effort and it turns out wrong. 😔

I'm always wary of getting colours mixed, in case it goes wrong, and if we need some spare for touch ups etc in future. 🎨 🖌

We wanted F&B paint, but it was ridiculously expensive, so I basically tried to find a similar shade in B&Q within their Homesense range (off the shelf) and found it for half the price of F&B on both occasions (our hallway is bottle green and white, our lounge is a deep sage) which was lucky really. 🙏

Random to add but would you pop in pink light bulbs or warm bulbs, to try and make it look more pink? Or would that send your DS over the edge? 😆

Sending hugs 🫂

Omg we did the same! And we did it with F&B

Basically this is a problem in all rooms; but much worse in hallways imo.

You have the double height wall
Weird light interactions - a flood of natural when you open the door
Your facing amplifies things ten fold as the paint and light reflect off each other and bounce. There’s also little to soften it.

Basically you really need to study your aspect/ facing.

Get the colour books out and really stick to the rules. You either go light white/cream or you go dark. There’s no in between for halls with little light.

You also need to pick your lightbulbs to go with the paint undertone.

So if you are north facing; you either lean into that and go very cool - blue undertone with white lights. Or you go yellow under base. Red is tricky against north. It should neutralise it but often ends up more purple than red. Green is a tricky one. It’s possible but hard to get the right one because green is a combo of blue and yellow.

Basically we did the same thing. Wanted plaster colour. It’s very much pink! Not in a good way. So now we are going cream based yellow.

Paint colour is always stronger once you’ve got a whole wall of it not just a section, and it will be darker in the corners. In hall you have 2 walls fairly close together intensifying the effect.

We’ve had the same experience with dulux actually. We were looking at a wheat shade, which was fine in the tester pot but when we painted the whole room had a lilacy/ rose hue.

We asked Dulux about it, and from memory, were told that it was to do with curing of the paint. It settled down after 6 weeks or so and we’re now totally happy with it. Maybe look it up, but I think it may be a known dulux thing!

I bought 'made-up' paint which was completely the wrong colour, took a painted sample of both the original and the made-up one back and they agreed and did me a new pot. It's important to take painted samples rather than photos, though.

Sometimes you can find 'secondhand' (but perfectly good) F&B paint on Ebay etc.

Good luck. And yes to the posters saying that you've the done the hardest bit so repainting shouldn't take too long.

At the risk of sounding incredibly dull and boring, there is a reason why all my walls are white. I use paintings, furniture and in some cases soft furnishings to inject colour.
I only have stripped floorboards in most rooms (colour through rugs), bathrooms and kitchen/hall are tiled.
It is possible that I get overwhelmed with too much choice, so the decision was easy.

Colour matches are never the same shade.

It’s better to find a live paint colour similar to the F&B shade you want, then you can be sure what you’re getting.