Hallway colour crisis

Hi OP - here is Tailor Tack as the middle sample in a North East bedroom on a bright yet grey day. The current white walls are basic universal white, for comparison.

In that case take it back to Brewers with the tester and tell them they made it wrong. Maddening, of course.

I've never had much l much luck with mixed paint - I tried to get a couple of Farrow and Ball colours copied and they were only very vague approximations of the real thing.

And definitely paint A4 papers and put them up in several places. Look at them at different times of day.

You can do a coat morning and another late afternoon, if it’s a small space.

It’s always more intense in big patches though. DH didn’t think the pale primrose I chose was worth doing and wanted a stronger yellow. He agreed by the time we were done that pale was plenty!

If you find yourself in the same situation again, stop early and add white to it. Then go again!

I feel your pain.

a couple of years ago I decided I wanted our hallway and landings this very pale sage green colour. I hired a painter/decorator, chose the colour from a small test pot, spent almost £1k on paint and left him to it.

I came home to the entire entryway and all the way up 3 floors of my house a bright green neon colour. It was fucking awful. I have sky lights that bounced the colour off the walls onto anyone standing there making them look like an alien.

There was no way I could live with it. The painter said it will look better after the second coat. My DH was trying to convince me it would be fine. But no way. I just had to suck up the cost of paying for more labour and another fortune on paint in a different colour.

Change the colour and do it now otherwise it will be one of those things that bugs you and upsets you for years.

I've never bothered with that much. Just a few patches painted next to each other and then picked one. I only like quite strong colours though so maybe they aren't as affected by light changes. Don't know.

Our hall and landing was one of those pale off whites for a while when I wanted to just get it painted fresh. I think it was Nutmeg White. It depressed me every time I looked at it. Now it's a lovely pink.

Yeah you can’t rely on the online photos OP - even your screen settings will change the tone. We wanted the same as you for our house redecoration recently, and also used Dulux. We ended up going with Nutmeg White which gave a lovely, subtle pink.

Of course there are!

This might not answer your question, but if you add the tiniest (and start at very very tiny!) touch of black to a pale paint, it will stop looking like a cheap pastel and more like a subtle F&B shade. You can use a tube of artist's acrylic paint, so it only costs a few quid. Stir it really well for ages! If you've got loads of the Dulux left, it might be worth a try.

Just to say that the lighting will impact F&B paint too.

I don't get the weirdness about F&B paints. Personally I found F&B a nightmare to work with when I did a small room and my decorator mutinied after doing one room with it and said never again. Trade Dulux or valspar is much more consistent texture and doesn't streak in the same way for dark colours at least. I would NEVER use it for a hallway unless a professional was doing the work.

are there actually people who don't do this?

Oh it is very lilac..
I'm sorry I'd have to change it. I'd just stick to white like another poster said and then use wall hangings etc to add colour.
Paint is so fickle and dependent on lighting.

yabu because painting a small hallway shouldn’t take a week! even with prep and undercoat and also tester pot is very close to final result no? colour on screen means nothing

and YNBU at all to want the colour you love and buy the colour you love. get the right undercoat too and test it all in the actual room on the actual wall beforehand

Don’t lump it - it will annoy you every day and it’s not as if you can avoid it, as it’s your hallway. It won’t take more than a day to fix, even allowing for 2 coats. Valspar make decent copies of F&B.

I’ve made mistakes like this in the past - I did my north facing bedroom Cinder Rose despite being told it would look cold and purply, and now in the middle of switching to Templeton Pink. I also painted our living room shit brown, instead of the lovely latte colour I had envisaged.

@TailorTack

I absolutely did not know there were companies who match F&B and LG! What a brilliant discovery! Are they decent with how accurate they are?

As I said in my above post they’re totally inaccurate.

When people colour match, if they haven’t seen the FB/LG colour on the wall, they’re none the wiser that the shade they’ve been given isn’t a match.

But if you know the colours well - it’s very obvious.

A friend's dad used to be a painter and decorator. He recommends that if you want a Farrow & Ball colour, take the F&B shade card to a Brewers and get them to match it in a decent brand of paint.

I've had a similar dilemma, I wanted a dark green on the chimney breast and alcoves and a lighter green on the walls,, turned out darker than I expected but I've grown to like it having lived with it for 4 months! I was told by Brewers never to go to two different branches for the same colour, eg had I needed more, as the machines can be very slightly off.

That happened to me once, and it turned out to be a faulty batch of paint. Unfortunately, our decorator didn’t notice and kept applying a hideous shade of a colour I never wanted and absolutely hated! (“Oh, I did wonder because you usually choose such nice colours,” he said!) Just claim that’s what happened and never admit you changed your mind, LOL!

Here are a couple of tips for next time. First, paint the colour you’re considering on a large sheet of paper and move it around the space you want to decorate, securing it with a bit of masking tape. Colours can look very different in various spots and at different times of day.

Also, Brewers (the decorating shop) can colour-match your F&B shades using Johnson’s paint. Just tell them the F&B colour you want, and they’ll handle the rest. It’s a cheaper alternative to F&B.

I'm jealous. I want to do this too but sadly it's not just an ensuite / small room which needs changing 😭

We had this exact problem in our ensuite.

The decorator painted it all pink for me, which should have been very similar to the colour you choose, which turned out to be an absolutely VILE pinky lilac. I absolutely hated it, so did DH. I had the same 'You always do this, you never listen'

Anyway, I got the decorator to change it and now its olive green and I love it, so moral of the story, just change it or you will hate it forever.

I think he's mixed this up and you've got one of these. I would go back with the leftover paint and simply ask. If you have gotten the wrong colour then at least you and your DH can not argue about it.
https://www.dulux.co.uk/en/colour-details/pretty-pink

https://www.dulux.co.uk/en/colour-details/dusted-fondant

5 days to do a full hallway top to bottom with all the prep work and wood finishings while doing a FT jobs is about right. Very easy to repaint walls in perfect condition when the woodwork doesn't need doing.

I wonder if the paint was mixed wrong? Although I find pink colours don’t do very well in rooms with little natural light tbh. I really wanted pink in my downstairs loo which does have a window but doesn’t get any direct sunlight - after much deliberation I went with Lick Pink 01 which is more on the peachy side but I’m happy with it in the space!

I feel your pain.
We once have blossom white in our living room it was just a very very soft pink.
I think a mistake has been made with the mixing. I would go back to stop and complain. Buy a tester pot and compare first though.
But I can’t believe how some of your family are acting, there is giving your opinion and going on and and on about it!