Choosing a colour - sample on bare plaster or primed walls?

[Root99]

Help me settle a disagreement! I think that to choose a colour for our living room which has just been plastered we are best to put the initial coat of primer on so it's not against the 'pink' of the plaster. DH thinks that I am being idiotic and we can choose fine from samples straight onto the plaster. What do you reckon?

Having just painted a whole room the wrong colour after painting testers straight onto the existing paint, I'd say paint your colour onto a neutral background, or rather a neutral border. E.g. have a white surround to your tester if your woodwork is white. Having a colour against another colour does change your perception of it.

Would depend on whether you're painting straight onto plaster or whether you will be painting the walls white first.

I'd recommend you paint white first if your paint is expensive since freshly plastered walls seem to suck up paint. If its cheap then not so important.

Make sure you do a big enough patch on each wall so that you see it in different lights.

In my living room currently I have three walls plastered and one painted white after having damp repair work on the three walls. I have been trying to choose paint for the whole room and have colour patches all over the walls - colours look hugely different and much, much paler on the freshly plastered walls. Plaster is porous and absorbs paint which is why you should paint it a neutral base colour before the colour you actually wants, otherwise it gets sucked into the wall and will go patchy.

So in answer to your question, not on the plastered wall!

Thank you! We did slap some primer on first. Now just got to choose the colour...