Help in finding out a paint colour

[pmd076]

I need to touch up some scratch marks on my living room wall but I've no idea what colour the paint is.

Does anyone have any tips on the best way to find out?

I tried the Valspar site where you upload a photo of the wall, but the suggestions are no where near the paint colour. They came out in the grey palette when the wall is an off-white almost cream colour! I guess that must have been because of the lighting

Did you paint it, and if so can you remember what brand it was?

You could try getting different tester cards from different brands; if there's a Dulux decorating centre near you they have loads if shade cards (rather than just the main colours book) or you could get a range of the valspar cards.

In all honesty though, I'd probably just repaint as it's a faff trying to match a colour and you'll probably never get it perfect.

Honestly I think your chances of finding the exact paint are slim, and even if you did the colour on the wall has probably faded or changed I after a few years of sunlight and the new paint will be from a different dye lot.

Do you have contact details for the previous occupants? Have you checked the shed, garage or loft for tins?

Can you upload a pic here? If so, put it against a plain white piece of a4 so we can see what to compare it against

Could you chip a section off and take it to a colour match service? Then you'd get a matching colour for what is there, even if it's not the shade it was originally painted (due to fading etc)

@Wavey123

Can you upload a pic here? If so, put it against a plain white piece of a4 so we can see what to compare it against

So here are a few pictures. The second picture shows the mark. The colour is an off-white/cream and we must have used all the paint when the room was done as we don't have any tins that match it.

It's by the sofa and is a scratch mark that has come from the exposed zip of a cushion that has been used as a head rest on the sofa. It looks worse at night time

to have paint colour matched Valspar require a sample a size of a fingernail (or 1 square inch min).

My suggestion would be to scrape off/cut out a bit of your actual wall paint from an inconspicuous place - like near a skirting board or from behind the bed, in a similar size, and maybe take that to a colour matching service.

I saw a YouTube video recently where they unscrewed a plug socket and were able to tear off a bit of the painted paper from behind that to take to the shop to be colour matched.

As a pp said, go to B&Q get a load of their colour swatches in that colour range and compare them to your wall, then buy tester pot in the colour that matches (think you can order these online). £3, job done.

....probably magnolia.

Hi
Just to advise against touching up paint....I touched up our living room about a year after it was painted with the exact same paint and it dried slightly differently and I wish I'd just left the scuff marks there to be honest.
So even if you manage to match it perfectly, it may not actually blend in as you would like.

I once saw a house where walls had been touched up and the owner had paint matched, but of course the original paint had aged. He washed the whole wall a couple of times with a damp cloth. That blended everything. Hard work but it was a good result on non-textured wall.

Looks a bit like dulux Egyptian cotton. Agree with the other comments, try and get a large chip of paint from somewhere on the wall and take it to B&Q to colour match.