Farrow & Ball paint - is it worth the cost?

[Wellhellojonsnow]

I’ve bought a furniture project - a teak 50’s sideboard which I’m planning on painting. I love one of the Farrow & Ball colours but it’s soooo expensive. I’m not very crafty so have very little paint experience. Would a standard B&Q paint matched in colour have a similar effect. I’m looking at F&B dead flat.

Thanks!

Not sure. My friend bought the real deal for his living room. I helped him paint and it did go on beautifully. BUT I've just had my living room painted and got a F&B colour matched with the Decorating Centre Online and the painters said it was good stuff too. It's Leyland Trade paint and cost me £90 for 10l. I think F&B was £45 for 2.5l in B&Q so twice the price. Worth having a look at the Decorating Centre, very helpful and super fast delivery!

Go to Brewers and see if they can match the colour in Dulux trade quality paint. All the decorators I know would choose that over F&B

We use it because it gives the lovely chalky Matt texture that are old house needs. We’ve not found anything that produces the same surface.

We used F&B. It’s gorgeous. Lovely deep coverage.

It does give that nice chalky finish but we’ve used it in our hall stairs and landing across 3 floors - was very very expensive and not wipeable so needs touching up frequently - a right pain in the arse for a high traffic area.
We’ve used f&b in our bedroom (2 different colours) and it’s stayed pristine because no one comes in and rubs their hands along it etc!
So I just recommend thinking about where it’s going.
We colour matched a few others for other rooms in the house.

Noooooo......it chips, can’t be wiped clean & tales multiple coats - Dulux colour match trade all the way

I like Little Greene.

That Craig and Rose one (used to be 1837) is pretty good. Cheaper than f&b and nice colours. Do a chalky finish.

It's worth every penny. Two coats and you're done as opposed to 6 coats of cheap paint. I've washed my walls loads of time and the paint still looks as good as when I painted it on 6 years ago.

@Enterthewolves speaks sense.

Not really, take the colour to a decorators merchant and get it matched. Preferably in eggshell, which is a bit harder to put on but still gives you that chalky finish and also wears well...

I love F&B chalky finish for walls and I don't think the colour match versions give the same effect. But for kitchen and hallways I'd use F&B modern emulsion rather than estate emulsion - more practical as wipeable. Estate emulsion for bedrooms and sitting-rooms where there's less chance of marking the walls .. it's definitely prettier.

However I think F&B's paint for woodwork is really dreadful and very poor quality. I would always colour match with a Johnstone's paint or similar.

I used it for a big old wooden cabinet to put in our kitchen. I thought it was crap. I used undercoat and several coats of the paint. It took forever and didn't cover well.

I've used F&B and Dulux, I really don't see much difference (except Dulux is wipeable) although F&B have some really beautiful colours, if you can get a good quality paint colour matched I'd go with that - I've certainly never had to do 6 coats as a PP suggests.

Isn't f&b dead flat emulsion paint for walls? To paint wooden furniture you need specialised wood paint, e g. Eggshell and I would go for something much harder wearing than f&b unless it's purely for decoration.

F&B eggshell is hard work to apply to wood.

It’s lovely for walls but dreadful for wood.

I use Frenchic paint for furniture, I’ve done loads of pieces and it’s a lovely paint to work with and rarely do I have to prep or sand the furniture. I couldn’t use F&B for furniture.

Thanks for replies - it’s good to hear personal experiences!

I’ve got a brewers 10 mins down the road so I’ll and enquire down there. It’s going to be a heavily used piece (storing kids craft stuff) so I need the paint to be hardwearing/easily touched up.

From experience Little Greene co is far better