Matching Farrow and Ball colours

[ratticus4]

I really like the following colours from F&B but I wondered if anyone had any success matching them to keep the costs down. It’s for paining a high ceiling Edwardian house so we need a lot of paint!

The colours are -

Hague blue
De nimes
Cooking apple
Vardo
calamine.

Brewers will colour match F&B to Johnston’s. I was getting Johnston’s trade which is still quite expensive. Several painters have said F&B can be tricky to apply perfectly and doesn’t take touch ups well so it was more to do with that than cost saving.

Some will say that the depth of tone is not the same to the original F&B colour. Mine looked ok and went on very easily/well.

I asked about this in B & Q and was told not to use the current F&B colour chart to match it as it's not true to colour! The assistant produced an old F&B colour chart and used it instead and honestly I couldn't believe the difference in the colours! I had colour matched in the past and always felt there was something not quite right but didn't know what was wrong.

Hi @ratticus4 we've used Hague Blue together with French Gray and they pair really well (French Gray is much closer to Cooking Apple in real like than it looks on their website!) We've also used Calamine in our daughter's bedroom and I can imagine it'd pair with Hague Blue pretty well too.

Hope that helps!

Canan
www.petalsandplume.com

Johnston’s is generally considered the best match. At the trade counter they will mix by the RAL code so you don’t need to worry about taking a colour chart to match or anything like that. I couldn’t really say how well they match as I don’t have the originals to compare to but it looks good to me.

@MustWe that’s my understanding too. Proper colour matching is done with colour codes, “scanning” a colour chart is not really the accurate way. That’s why I’d suggest going to Brewers or another paint specialist rather than b&q.

That's great, thanks all. I'll 'check' with the decorator that he is going to Brewers.

Sorry I think you've misunderstood me regarding the matching. What I meant was the actual paint colour is slightly different to the colour chart. I know they use the code numbers to mix it but the colour chart doesn't accurately reflect the colour if you see what I mean.
To be honest with F&B the colours are so gorgeous I can never make my mind up!

Yes use the code and not a chart. Its important IMO to have checked the sample using the actual F&B colour since as others have said, not all charts are accurate and the online ones certainly aren't.

We have used both Johnstone’s (in their acrylic durable Matt) and also Dulux (diamond Matt). The colours have worked out fine, and the paint is lovely. I would say Johnstone’s are better because they seem to have colour match codes from their computer (and I believe some kind of licence deal with F&B). Dulux scanned the colour chart but we were buying paint hours before lockdown so didn’t care too much.

I’m really happy with our paint, I think you get the benefit of the F&B colours - depth and shade and different in different lights, perfect for older houses. I think the colours are a pretty good match too. Someone once posted a quote significant difference between F&B and a Johnstone’s mix but we haven’t had that issue.

Our house sounds similar to yours, large Edwardian, endless paint needed.

@ratticus4 he doesn’t need to go to Brewers if it’s Johnstone’s paint, he could just go directly. Or if you’re me, you could just get authorisation to use his account and get the paint mixed up yourself

One thing I have noticed is that because they’re strong pigments, often the paint will need to be shaken twice, so that’s one benefit of being there - get them to open the tin and check!

You need this.....

www.e-paint.co.uk/colour_alternatives.asp

I've used decorating centre online for paint matches to F&B and can highly recommend them.

www.decoratingcentreonline.co.uk