A greens grey paint, but for a North facing room

[WellTidy]

We have a large north facing downstairs room, used as a playroom. Flooring will be amtico in a dark oak, we have this rug tm-interiors.co.uk/rugs-brands/harlequin-floreale-rug-maize-44906, sofas are mid grey, curtains are a pale gold damask.

I was hopeful for f&b mizzle www.farrow-ball.com/paint-colours/mizzle but despite what they say, I think it looks a bit too blue and I think that may be because the room is north facing.

Any other suggestions please? I’ve also tried dulux Jurassic stone (too pale) and f&b french grey (too dark).

Jurassic Stone too pale? - need a Lightness less than 83.

Mizzle to dark? - need a Lightness higher than 77.

Cromarty in terms of Lightness sits between the two - 81.

Cromarty sits between Mizzle and the other colours in terms of Hue Angle°.

Need to check if it reads blue like Mizzle in your room.
Need to check if its colourful enough for you.

Answer both of those and you are really zooming in!

Jurassic Stone
Camouflage
Cromarty
Mizzle

Rug & Greens,,,

Oh my word, thank you so much. I am in awe! This is an education. I am now even more hopeful for Cromarty!

If it doesn’t work - come back.
We have enough info now to narrow that right down.
Good Luck.

colette I’ve made a decision. I’ve gone with dulux crushed aloe (recommended upthread). Tester came today and I wasn’t at all sure at first, but I painted some a3 mixed media sheets of paper with my top five and narrowed it down.

Cromarty was too eau-de-nil-y unfortunately.

I toyed with f&b mizzle, but it had too much blue in it.

I was umming and aaahing about dulux Jurassic stone, but it was too pale a green.

Then it was between f&b vert de terre and dulux crushed aloe, with the vert de terre being a bit too dark.

Crushed aloe is a proper green, and I feel that I’ve made the right decision. It is a ku h deeper colour than I’ve ever chosen before, but the room can take it, and it looks really good with the rug, and also with the pale gold curtains, grey sofa fabric swatch and a green fabric swatch for an armchair which is between a grass and a moss textured green.

Thanks so much for your help. I’m sure my choice has made a mockery of everything I’ve said previously!

That’s great you have found the right one! 🌈

Thanks so much for the feedback - it’s really, really useful information for anyone interested in these colours.

It’s quite something to note just how much the low Chroma colours like Cromarty & Mizzle from that neighbourhood can shift so blue!

It shows how important it is to test in situ.

👍🌈

Dulux Crushed Aloe

Thanks colette. It looks more green than that it my room; on my phone it looks quite olive. But it isn’t at all.

Our phones & laptops etc have a much smaller colour space to draw from, than ‘in real-life colour’.

So those devices do their best to give their best match to the actual colour but often have to re-map them to fit within the colours available.

Online colour can only ever really be an approximation of actual paint colours, no matter how fab the hardware.

That’s why colour measurement is so useful.

It’s interesting that the colour you chose has more Chroma than all those previously looked at. You must have needed that extra punch of colour to work best with your available lighting.

Drat. The dulux crushed aloe is out of stock everywhere - I am assuming that it is discontinued. The Paint Shed website can’t do it either (mixes to order). My only other option is to get it colour matched by valspar in b&q using the sheet of a4 that I painted up in it. Maybe that’s the answer - I am 11 tester pots in and don’t think I should start that again!

@WellTidy

Drat. The dulux crushed aloe is out of stock everywhere - I am assuming that it is discontinued. The Paint Shed website can’t do it either (mixes to order). My only other option is to get it colour matched by valspar in b&q using the sheet of a4 that I painted up in it. Maybe that’s the answer - I am 11 tester pots in and don’t think I should start that again!

When we did a touch up of our crushed aloe I had to get it from a dulux centre. The card was still there so they do still do it but just mixed by them I think (which is helpful in a pandemic).

@WellTidy

Drat. The dulux crushed aloe is out of stock everywhere - I am assuming that it is discontinued. The Paint Shed website can’t do it either (mixes to order). My only other option is to get it colour matched by valspar in b&q using the sheet of a4 that I painted up in it. Maybe that’s the answer - I am 11 tester pots in and don’t think I should start that again!

Have you checked a dulux decorator centre? They should be able to make it up for you. Or brewers?

I’ve looked at dulux decorator centre and it seems to be available there in both vinyl Matt and diamond Matt. www.duluxdecoratorcentre.co.uk/coloursearch/1776867?returnurl=%2fcolours%3fad%3duspheadercolour&count=35

I got the colour code for crushed aloe by googling it, but it appears to be this: 90YY 52/138. You could order the colour card of this shade from dulux trade paint to double check the colour they send you is the correct one.

I’ve just checked @colette100 post above and the colour code on the left of her picture of crushed aloe is the same as the one I have given you.

Are you chasing a clear, pale, pearly green? How about Fired Earth's Opal Green? I have this in a north facing room with oyster woodwork and walnut floors, and it is beautiful - tranquil, elegant, relaxing.

Paint colour can’t impact the quality of light which comes into room, because paint isn’t an illuminant. (Maybe super duper neon paint ?)

Paint colour conversely, is affected by the quality of light coming into a room.

You may have more luck partnering paint colour and available light if you think about that light as being either abundant, moderate or dim.

You can have a south facing room with a tiny window.
You can have a north facing room with a whole wall of glass.

Artists choose north facing studios because they often have the more balanced wavelengths of light throughout the day.

In a north facing room light may spike slightly more in the blue spectrum, but it doesn’t mean it is always downright, absolutely and completely blue.

Light in a north facing room tends to glance-on-by and spill in, rather than beam-in like it may in a very open, west facing room with lots of windows, at the end of a summer’s day.

If you do think of orientation at all, rather than abundant, moderate or dim, then consider that north and south have something in common.

In a well-lit south facing room, lots of windows, you may need to think about colours a little stronger than you maybe used to, if you were to use them in more dimly lit areas. Less colourful colours maybe more inclined to bleach-out.

In a dimly lit, possibly north facing room with smaller windows, you also maybe surprised that the walls can take slightly more chromatic colours than in other more moderately lit areas of the home.

So I would first consider colour choices in relation to other fixed elements, like flooring, windows, worktop. Do they have any kind of colour relationship? And then think about how they may work with the available light and adjust colour strength accordingly. After all light changes day to day, season to season,,,

colette do you live in a north facing house?

Based on my own experience, I’m not sure I follow the logic of forgetting about the orientation of the room. My north facing rooms all have large windows, so they’re definitely not dark, but the light makes a HUGE difference to how greens and blues look. The one advantage these rooms have is that the light is very constant, so colours don’t change much during the day, but to my eyes they definitely look much cooler.

I do actually live in a north facing home, with a moderate light quantity in the front room.

You may find blues and greens naturally sit well there as they respond to the slight spike in that area of the blue/violet area of the spectrum.

But the truth is you can choose colours from any Hue Family for a north facing room, as long as you manage the right Value and Chroma to partner the quantity of available light.

When colours look dim, washed out, faded, more greyed than expected it’s due to not partnering appropriate levels of Value & Chroma to the light.

You can still make a pink sing in a north facing room, if the above is considered.

🌈

This is fascinating.

I have F&B Purbeck Stone in my north facing living room and it looks very green most of the time.

Purbeck Stone can be a bit of a chameleon.

It’s from the beginning of the Yellow Hue Family. In reasonably balanced light it’s often described as a warm grey/greige.

In certain lighting you may get that sense of greenness I associate with bronze type colours.

In spaces where light spikes more in the blue-violet wavelengths of the spectrum, as discussed above - there maybe moments of purple/plum.

You don’t really know which character trait you’re going to get if you don’t sample it in that specific room.

Little Green paint Company has some nice greenish greys, I've used their French Grey in my bathroom, i think you have to get them mail order.

Farrow and Ball Cooking Apple Green is quite similar to Dulux Crushed Aloe for another alternative.

I thought I’d take a photo, given how much help I had on this thread, from @colette100 in particular.

It's beautiful, WellTidy. Fab room.

colette100, I want you to be my new friend. I could sit listening to you for hours.