Shall I colour match or buy original F&B?

[MeMeMeow85]

Hi - was planning to buy F&B paint today, but the decorator said Johnstones (colour matched) is better. Any feedback please?

There’s not much price difference per litre, but the decorator merchant said I’d need 3 coats of F&B and only 2 coats with Johnstone.

Any success/disaster stories on colour matching? Thanks

Ive just colour matched F&B for our hall ans 6 bedrooms with Dulux. I always do as hsve 3 very yoing children and use diamond matt so it can be cleaned. Very pleased with the result.

Our kitchen, living room and 2 of the bedrooms are all in Johnstones colour matched F&B and I think it’s come out great (vert de terre, elephants breath, peignoir and borrowed light) All rooms required just the 2 coats and we used Johnstones Covaplus vinyl Matt.

I have stiffkey blue in our bedroom colour matched from Johnstones, I love it and it coated wonderfully.
I'm told there is a difference in texture and how the light catches it but tbh it was just the colour I fell for.

I tried this but the price difference was minimal. I guess if you're doing an entire house the saving might make it worth it but not for just the odd room

I don’t know much about Johnson’s but I thought the point of F&B paints is the chalky texture and the fact that they are water based so far less nasty fumes and chemicals.

Johnstones F&B dupes are excellent. Much harder wearing and they go on a lot easier (decorators always hate working with F&B in my experience).

Have two different decorators say they prefer F&B to other paints. Just done one huge room with F&B and it came out perfect with two coats.

We colour matched F&B with valspar. Our decorated recommended we do so due to the paint being more hard wearing and going on more evenly than f&b

Another vote for Johnstones. Most paints are now water based and low odour.

The price difference can be vast. Johnstones is £25 for 5l mixed for light colours and £22 for 2.5l for the darker shades. F&B is £45 for 2.5l.

Decorators hate F& B because it’s never available on trade discount.

Interior designers love it because it’s batch mixed in house by F&B, so the colour you get from the paint shop is the very same colour you get from the tester. I grew tired of having a strange pink tinge to every pot of Dulux I bought.

It is not hardwearing paint though, I will give you that. If you have small children, Edward Bulmer sells a non-toxic and wipeable paint
that mimics the F&B bestsellers texture and all but - and it’s a big but - it’s more expensive.

If you know a pensioner, B&Q Wednesday is a good time to buy discounted paint. You can also buy F& B gift vouchers!

^ That's a good tip. What kind of discount do they get?

I think 10% but I believe there are offers too. Not all branches stock it though.

@MM18 & @umpteennamechanges

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but the B&Q diamond scheme has recently changed...the upshot is discount is only on garden centre stuff.

www.insightdiy.co.uk/news/bq-makes-significant-changes-to-diamond-card-offer/6338.htm

I've just painted 3 rooms with F&B modern emulsion and it's given a great result with 2 coats plus occasional touch ups for drips etc. The estate emulsion is the chalky one, but modern emulsion is supposed to be harder wearing, antifungal etc. so with kids we've gone for that.

Doing it myself has saved us a load more than the difference in paints, I've done all 3 rooms in 6 part days (painting one coat over one wall, moving to a different room to paint another wall while that dries etc.) including prepping the walls (polyfilla, sanding etc) and putting down dust sheets and masking tape.

All in, everything was about £400, but the decorators would have more than doubled that.Also if we'd gone for a substitute paint it wouldn't have been that much cheaper, as only about half the cost was paint, and it does seem to have quite a nice sheen and milkiness to it compared to the other paints we looked at (we painted patches of them everywhere).

Thanks all. I had 5 F&B colours and 2 Fired Earth colours matched by Johnstones. Really happy with how it looks so far (2 of the rooms are finished and the colour matches look great)