How to find out what colour house is painted in

[difficultyear]

Currently renovating our house which is painted render.

We are moving and installing new lights on the outside and removing sky dishes an other items from the exterior.

This has left patches where we need to touch in the paintwork.

No idea what colour the house is painted in.

It's a creamy stony biscuity colour.

Where to start my search to find out?

Chip some off and take it to a reputable paint retailer. They will mix it for you.

It will be tricky. Even if you indenting the paint, then painting from a different pot months or years later might give a different result... However, you could try by taking a bit off and taking that to a paint mixing shop, getting a couple of samples and then trying trying them to determine the closest match.

Do you have any friends that work in the building trade? I was surprised when a friend took one look at my walls and told me exactly what colour and make the paint was. We bought a pot and he was right- it was a perfect match! Alternatively take a picture into a good independent decorators' centre and see if they can point you in the right direction.

Did the previous people leave any tuns of paint behind? Even if they didn't leave the specific tin it might give a clue as to the brands they favoured

To be honest most people use the same few colours for external paint so maybe look at Sandtex or Dulux weather shield. If you have a Brewer's near you it might be their own brand, Johstones/Leyland. If the colour has been up a while it will have dulled so you might have to mix a couple of colours or tint slightly for the patches to "disappear".

If you google "Smooth Masonry Paint" of those brands you can see they all do variations of cream/stone so you should be able with a few tester pots to get a reasonable match.

I meant Brewer's own brand is Albany, that didn't copy right!