Colour matching Farrow & Ball? Any advice as the colours I’ve chosen are not coming out well!

[PicnicAtHangingRock]

I am having a bit of a decorating disaster.

Could anyone tell me please if colour matched paints ever turn out like the F&B originals? My decorators tried to get Schoolhouse white colour matched and it looks like the colour of margarine! It is so far from what I expected I have decided to choose a different colour (Slipper Satin) but I am afraid that colour matching that is going to turn out rubbish too, even though that’s what I have told them to do tomorrow.

I’m afraid that maybe the colours aren’t the problem so much as the fact that trying to colour match doesn’t work and I should either buy the F and B colour I want in F and B or pick a readymade colour in a more affordable range instead of trying to do this colour matching thing which doesn’t seem to be working out very well for me.

I am doing an entire newly refurbished three bed house so there is quite a lot of paint to buy, hence trying to economise but if it doesn’t look great it’s a false economy and I don’t want to spoil it at the end with a bad finish.

If you’re still with me, thank you. I need to tell the decorators what I want first thing tomorrow and I am so confused right now so if any kind soul has any words of wisdom they will be gratefully received!

Why don't you want to use F & B?

Apologies for the delay in coming back to the thread.

In answer to some of the questions, I’ll start with saying that it isn’t that I don’t want to use F and B but the decorators are telling me that we need so much that it would be cripplingly expensive. I said “3k for the paint?” and they said it would be way more but weren’t any more specific. I tried an online calculator that indicated we needed roughly 150litres but I mustn’t have put the correct figures in as that was costing under £2500 according to my calculations so I must have done it incorrectly. If anyone has a good rule of thumb for calculating these things, I’d love to hear it.

The house is basically an 8x10 metre box over three floors. Ground floor ceiling height is about 3 metres. First floor has semi-vaulted ceilings in all rooms which means there are a lot of double height spaces requiring more paint. Second floor is a small and cosy loft. I can’t actually remember the head height up there but the ceilings slope so it won’t use inordinate amounts of paint.

I went to site early this morning and tried testers of the actual F and B colours next to the imitations and the Schoolhouse White was indeed quite different but the Slipper Satin was similar so I told them to go ahead and use it all over.

When I mentioned Johnstone’s, they said they couldn’t get it today so I said ok use the Leyland in that case but when I phoned them in the afternoon to say I might pop back to see how it was looking they said they were just continuing the mist coats. I was tempted to email them tonight to say if you haven’t started can you please get some Johnstone’s tomorrow, but now I fear that would be effectively starting with yet another new shade that I won’t have seen in person so I might just leave the decision as is.

Testers aren’t even that useful because as I’ve mentioned it isn’t like decorating an existing home where you have the same light that you will be living with already in situ. The windows are boarded and there are no light fittings. The only light sources are the glaring bare bulbs that builders string up and position around the place to work by.

FaceLikeAPairOfTits mentioned Wimborne White and I did actually use this on the ground floor but it looks a bit too stark and gallery white in that particular room. It’s a very big room but it isn’t particularly bright like the first floor. The kitchen will be painted in Pigeon so I felt the walls needed softening up a little but again this could just be because the current lighting is abysmal and maybe it will look ok once the lighting is right.

You could have say I’m having to make all these decisions in the dark. The annoying thing is I thought about a colour consultancy before the demolition but I decided against it because I thought once the layout is all changed it won’t be that useful. With hindsight it would have been very helpful given the current situation.

Well done for remaining calm, Picnic. You're trying to make paint decisions in an impossible situation, so I think you've done the right thing going for Slipper Satin as it's very inoffensive and easy to live with. I don't think a colour consultant would have helped a) because you have us and b) because they wouldn't have been standing in your finished home either.

Once you've been in the finished house for a while and got used to how the light moves at different times of year, and all your furnishings etc are in, you'll have a much better idea. Then you can take your time and source shades in a more informed way.

We've been in our house nearly 5 years. I decorated the living room not long after moving in, and I wouldn't do the same colour now now I know the room better.

Thank you, Face and indeed, all of you for your advice and encouragement amidst my painting shambles. The Slupper Satin seems to be shaping up ok so I think will do the whole of the first floor with it and redo the ground floor the same colour.

You’re so right about living with it for a whole. The perfect paint shades will reveal themselves over time but the Slipper Satin is good enough for now and a world away from that awful custard purporting to be a match for School house white.

Op, you can't tell on a patch as the background colour changes the perception. However if you're going to colour match to farrow and ball, go for a flat matt, Dulux do one, but flat matt gives the same chalky finish as Farrow and ball and the match is more perfect.

I know it's been a while and I'm sure @PicnicAtHangingRock you've got past your painting disaster, BUT I wanted to let you know it's not you!!!! I had exactly the same issue and I thought I was losing my mind (over paint!).

I was told it was a Johnstone's colour match to F&B School House White and, like you, I was really disappointed that it looked like margarine. My painter fobbed me off and weirdly, in some light it did look like the paint chart.

However, I got an F&B sample pot and it definitely wasn't a match. But, wait for it... I've got to the root of the problem and, I have to say, I think F&B are to blame!!!!
F&B do a "School House" White (kind chalky) AND a "House" White (much more creamy/buttery). Apparently paint mixer is a bit deaf and they'd "had this problem before and we keep meaning to use the numbers rather than the names." But why would you have 2 colours with such similar names?!?!? I'm sure it must happen a lot.
Mystery solved and mind at rest... Hope this helps in hindsight!