DIY project - Should I be honest?

[Liana2021]

Lighthearted post!...

We just moved in our first house and DH has started enthusiastically his first DIY project; painting the room of our first child. He’s never painted before so has bought all the gear, spent time doing it super seriously watching YouTube tutorials and basically took it really at heart.

Now he showed me the result and I don’t like it at all. It’s very well done but the colour that I picked with him is not cream but a sort of pale yellow that just looks grim.

When he saw I wasn’t as happy as expected, I basically bought some time saying that I needed to have a look at the colour properly in the morning at the daylight.

Do I crush his DIY dreams in the morning and say I don’t like the colour and that we have to pick another one?
Or AIBU and is it more important to spare his feelings on this occasion and say I love the colour now that I can see it properly?

We just got married and he seems pretty disappointed by my earlier reaction so I want to get this right!

YABU - say you love the colour, don’t crush his pride to have completed a DIY project for his family
YANBU - better be honest, you will regret having a 🤢 colour in the bedroom of your DC for years
😅

I’d praise his painting but say the colour has not come out as you expected.

But you’re not ‘crushing his DIY dreams’, you’re saying it’s perfectly competent but the colour is awful — this isn’t that controversial, surely? It quite often happens that a paint that looked fine as a tester is terrible in a room...

I’m not sure how saying you don’t like the colour would crush his pride. His pride is in a job well done - it’s you that chose the colour that should be ashamed!

You might like it better in the morning. But this is the reason people buy and try lots of testers.

Great work but that paint colour doesn't look like the brochure.
Next time get testers.
How would it look with decals?

I may have reached peak lockdown boredom/overthinking, it’s literally been the highlight of our week getting this room painted I’ll just do what normal people do and praise his work but change the colour.
Thanks!