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Hallway colour crisis

336 replies

TailorTack · 12/03/2026 07:33

Well this was the colour I wanted. Tailor Tack. For our tiny little entrance, stairway and upstairs little landing. Can't even call it a hallway really because we have no hallway. I wanted to make it look lovely. But we couldn't justify the cost of F&B.
So based on me wanting a pale white pink, DH bought Blossom White Dulux and we've just spent the week prepping and decorating, it has taken 5 days, using precious annual leave time to do it whilst DC are at school and out of the way.
It's nothing like it looked online or in the colour chart pamphlet, or in the tester patch.
Online and in the Dulux colour chart it looked a very pale chilled out pink.
In my hall it is.....basically bright lilac.
It's not the colour I wanted at all😰
DH has hit the roof and said "You do this every time! We decorate a room after weeks on end of looking at different shades of different colours, then when it's done you always say you don't like it!!!". Which I can't deny. But the colours never look the same on the walls as they do on the charts, or even the tester pot patches!
Oh, forgot to say, we started off painting it what looked like a lovely sedate green on the colour chart but it looked like grey sludge on my walls so we abandoned it 1/4 way through and that caused a row in itself. And a waste of money.
I wanted a nice, very pale, calm, muted white pink.
What I've got is bright lilac, maybe you could call it bright but pale lavender.
It literally looks NOTHING like the Dulux images of the colour on their website.
It looks nothing like other images of it online.
It's done now and I will be able to live with it though I am upset because I wanted to love it. I wanted to walk in and love the colour that greeted me. Instead I think "urgh, don't like it".
DH likes it!
DD 10 is skipping around saying it's the best colour ever!!!
But DS 14 absolutely HATES it. He literally hates it. He's saying "I love our house, why have you painted the hallway bright purpley-pink?!?! It's horrible!".
This morning DH said to DS "Is the colour growing on you?" And DS said "I can't even talk about it" whilst looking mortified.
I feel really bad for him.
Should I lump it, having both spent a week of AL working on it? And just tell DS he'll have to live with it?
Or change it and risk a massive fall out with DH? He won't take any more AL to do it all over again so it'd be me on my own. And he'll argue about the time and cost involved.
And if I buy another 7.5 litres of a different colour paint, I may as well have just paid more for F&B and got Tailor Tack in the first place😪
We have an absolutely tiny little house with a tiny little hallway. I wish we could move to a more spacious house but we can't. So I thought 'Okay, just make the best of what we've got' and I was trying to create a beautiful entrance/stairs/landing. I've seen tiny houses on Pinterest/Instagram that still look lovely if they're decorated absolutely beautifully and tastefully. That's what I was trying to achieve but have failed.
So
Leave it be, or go through the pain of changing it?

OP posts:
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BelleEpoque27 · 12/03/2026 07:45

Did you not check the colour on the walls first? Paints will look completely different in different lights, depending on which way the windows are facing, what type of lightbulb you have...

Get some plain paper and paint the colours you like onto them, them blu-tac them up and live with them for a few days. Move them around the room, to the lighter and shadier parts. You'll see how the colours change throughout the day. (Even better paint them onto the walls directly, but this can be tricky to cover with deeper shades.)

Before we painted our dining room I had 18 different colour testers up around the room, for weeks 😂 I love the colour we have now though!

RainyDae · 12/03/2026 07:44

If you take a photo does it look pale pink or lilac? If you still have a tester, can you paint a patch under a picture frame or mirror where it won't be seen and compare? Maybe it genuinely isn't the same, or maybe it's the lighting.

Dulux have a guarantee you might want to have a read about, if it really doesn't look like the sample

I'm completely unable to visualise stuff at all, never mind repainting a room in my mind! know light changes the colour so much though. My favourite paint does actually look very different in my living room Vs my hall. (One north facing room, one south facing)

Jellycatspyjamas · 12/03/2026 07:43

You really need to test the colour on the wall of the room, the light in the room makes a huge difference to the way the colour looks. I learned the same lesson after painting my bedroom what I thought was a lovely yellow but the green undertone shine through making the paint a sickly mud colour. We did repaint immediately and I’ve done colour on the wall testing ever since.

Sprawling · 12/03/2026 07:43

Well, either you learn to live with it, or you repaint. And yes, as a pp said, you need to start painting big tester cards and hanging them for a week and looking at them at all light levels, by natural and artificial light if this keeps happening. No colour is going to look the same in online photos or cards as it is on a specific. Which way does your entrance and stairs face? How much light does it get?

hellofrommyothername · 12/03/2026 07:41

Picture hasn’t loaded but leave it be for now! I always hate new colours when I first paint them on then they start to grow on me.

MsPug · 12/03/2026 07:40

Also you need to check the light at different times of day for paint - put the swatch on different walls not just one

i feel this is about more than paint as well op

randomchap · 12/03/2026 07:40

Just live with it. It's not the end of the world.

You've already used up annual leave on it.

I can understand why your husband doesn't want to redo it, especially if you've got previous for this type of thing

MsPug · 12/03/2026 07:38

Five days for a tiny little hallway!

OneTealTurtle · 12/03/2026 07:37

Why did you not do a colour patch test on the walls? Do a small square, leave it a week and see what you think?

If this is a regular occurrence especially it makes no sense why you wouldn’t do this.

Newsenmum · 12/03/2026 07:34

Photo?

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