Mixing Paint - Kitchen Walls

[Daphnesmate]

Hi,
I've made a bit of a mistake regarding paint colour for my feature wall in my kitchen (I need to ideally make it lighter) and I have already bought the paint in a sale a few months ago so cannot return.
Can anyone tell me please - is it possible to mix the paint with a white paint to make it lighter or would it be far too much hassle? If anyone has done this - how did you do it - did it work or did it just look uneven/create a mess

I have also posted this tread on the home decorating forum but posting here for more responses.

I've always mixed my own colour paints, so yes it is possible to do what you're asking.

If the wall is very dark, you may need to kill the colour by giving it a coat of white first before adding the new colour .

You will need another tin of white paint, and an empty container to mix the new paint in.

Work on the basis that you can make light paint darker, but it's a heck of a lot more difficult to make dark paint light.So.....

add maybe two thirds white paint to the empty container first, then start to add the darker paint small bit by small bit.
Use a long-handled kitchen utensil - something like a pea strainer - to stir....and stir, and stir and stir!

Once it looks like the colour you want, paint a small sample onto a piece of white paper and let it dry. It will dry a little darker, so it's important you do this.

When dry, compare it to the paint on your wall. If happy, then go ahead. If not then continue to add more white or colour and stir.

Great thanks for that Flamingo. Hopefully the paint wont be wasted after all.

You'll have to mix enough to cover all the walls in one go, otherwise you'll end up with slightly different batches! So a fairly big mixing receptacle.

It can also go horribly wrong. We are still fixing lots of bits from our previous owners mixing in white to blue. God knows why they continued with it and completed the whole room. Really streaky!

I've done this with mixed results. I think the paints need to be the same finish. So one set worked perfectly. The other bizarrely split and I ended up with a sort of white speckled effect and it had to be redone. Even though it appeared perfectly mixed and you couldn't see it when it was painted on.