Best paint company for colour matching to F&B? Decorator uses Crown normally

[rumnraisinrocks]

We are having our kitchen dining room decorated in Hague Blue and Wevet but will be colour matching. Our decorator tends to use Crown paints but I have no experience of them.

We are also doing PBW in the hallway, stairs and landing.

We need all paints to be scrubbable because of the locations.

Anyone got experience of crown paints or any suggestions for the best companies for colour matching?

They never match!! Whatever company you use.
Wevet will be OK as it's basically a white, but if you love Hague Blue, I'd pay the extra for the real thing

I get all my paint matched to F&B colours with Johnstone's trade paint. The colours match, and the quality is superior to what comes in the F&B sample tins!

Johnson's

Definitely Johnstone's, as well as a good match the paint is excellent

Johnstone’s will mix it exactly as they have all of the codes.

My decorator is currently painting downstairs with Johnstones colour matched to F&B. Its an exact match

We had ours done with Johnstones and you couldn’t tell the difference unless painted side by side. F&B did catch the light nicely. We did undercoat with Johnstones and top coat with F&B in the end.

I’ve had a Crown colour match to the ground colour of a Sanderson wallpaper. Perfect match and good paint. I’ve had Valspar for Little Greene, also perfect. Johnstones trade paint is fabulous though, just used it on my banisters. Wish I’d known they can match any colour as I needed to match to an existing wall where the paint is now discontinued. Finished up messily mixing 2 shades to achieve it. It did work but it was nightmarish, and I am never ever doing that again.

Valspar is very good. The paint is also superior to F&B if my DH is to be believed. It covers better and has a better finish.

I took the F&B colour name and code into Johnson's and they did a match for me. The decorator had recommended them to me

Decorating centre online colour match f&b colours in any paint type you want.

For all the Johnstones trade posts I'd just like to add in my experience the durable acrylic matt is good, the covaplus is terrible quality and marks at the slightest touch. Got mine from Decorating Centre Online too.

Colour matching is a myth- you get whatever the brand code is that’s roughly closest- there is a site somewhere that lists whatever brand is closest for each F&B shade. Echoing poster above Hague blue you won’t match. It’s about the load of pigment in the paint. Only F&b carries that much pigment and it really shows with deeper colours. If it’s a small area then fine but if you are trying to pull off a full room in a deep colour it’s going to be flat and dark. Hague blue in dead flat or estate emulsion chalky finish is a great colour becuase it has this very particular way it reflects light, that is beautiful and reads lighter than it is.
match away the others but defo spend a little extra to get a low sheen f&b Hague blue, don’t match that one…

(I’ve got a HB lounge and kitchen and know that colour really well…it’s magic when you use the real thing)

If you want f and b then buy f and b.

How often do you paint rooms? Divide that by the number of years and it’s probably £20 extra a year or so.

None of them. You can always tell.

Johnstone’s Matt durable acrylic.

Do you just like the F & B colours, or also the fact that they are low VOC and low odour? I almost always go for F & B and really noticed how long the chemical smell hung around when we used Dulux in DDs room instead.

@Lellochip I wish this thread had been started months ago & id read your comment. We’ve just painted 2 huge rooms with (colour matched to F&B) with Johnstone’s covaplus and the quality is dreadful! Truly awful. You just have to look at it and it leaves a mark!
The colour match is great but the paint itself is to be avoided.

F&B is a mineral paint and is a totally different material to the other paints mentioned here. It catches the light and changes tone slightly throughout the day. It's beautiful. A chemical paint doesn't do this.

However, it's not as thick and creamy to decorate with which is why some decorators don't like it.

By all means go for a colour match if you're trying to save money but do your research and know what you're buying.

I prefer Little Greene, beautiful colours and great quality paint.

Homebase are currently doing a '2 for 1' on F&B paint...just in case you decide to use the real thing OP 👍

Thinking we might go with F and B. I got a johnstones colour match yesterday and although it's similar it isn't quite the same.

As it is for a kitchen we would need to go for the modern emulsion so it is easily wipeable, rather than EE unfortunately. The tester I used was EE so just hoping I won't be disappointed.

Ah, bad luck - it was decorators that bought the covaplus for me, I'd have hoped they would've known better. The acrylic durable matt I insisted they bought for other rooms seems to be much better, have wiped marks (maybe not scrubbed) off with no damage.

For durability I've found the Valspar I used when I moved in 7 or 8 years ago is still flawless, though colour-matching to specific F&B shades isn't an option.

I used some farrow and ball paints and some colour matching using crown paints as that is what our decorator used. The colour matching was very good but I’m hugely unimpressed with the scrubbable finish, it really isn’t and it marks very easily.

The modern emulsion is apparently the hardest wearing paint on the market so probably worth the extra. Decorators hate F&B because it needs 3 coats.

Another vote for Little Greene, absolutely fabulous paint and smells less than even F&B. Plus their colour charts are made using the actual paint so you can more confidently pick colours without buying sample pots (although their sample pots are gorgeous and you get a small paintbrush).

E paint say Dulux Trade has the best match.