Decorator painted whole house wrong colour

[Whoatealltheminieggs]

I’ve just come to check on a rental property to find that the whole house has been painted dulux jasmine white rather than almond white which is what I specified. I have almond white in my own house and like it which is why I asked for it. I don’t know if it’s just a different house and different light but this looks so different. Is it? Has anyone swatched both? Would you say something ?

I can't believe you borrowed money rather than paint the house yourself! It's not difficult

Does it go with the flooring?

That would be the clincher for me.

(And yes, I know it's a rental. But tenants have to live in it and most do care)

It's annoying that it's not what you asked for, but I couldn't get het up about that. TBH the Jasmine white is much nicer anyway, almond white is too magnolia for my liking & isn't liked by any renters we know

*known

It’s been mentioned twice on this thread so I have to ask, how are people pronouncing almond in a way that makes it sound anything like jasmine?

It’s the ‘a’ sound. If people are saying almund, it’s the same ‘a’ sound as in jasmine. If you pronounce it aremund, without articulating the ‘l’, it isn’t!

It still doesn't begin with a J!!!

Arl or Ah or whatever doesn't sound like Jas!

I pronounce it with their ‘arl’ sound. I think he’s just made a mistake. I called him and he said he wrote down ‘Jasmine’ he’s probably been on auto pilot and used it before. I’m in a more accepting state of mind today. I can’t say I really like it but I’m happy a lot of people seem to think it’s preferable to the almond white.
@Silverfinch the house is hundreds of miles away, we both work and have no family close by for childcare and the family we do have also work anyway. I couldn’t possibly decorate a whole house.

Fair enough. But if you've had to borrow money to redecorate, what are you going to do once it's let and the boiler or the oven breaks beyond repair? It seems a very precarious position to be in as a landlord, you need reserves for immediate maintenance and repairs. Wouldn't it be better to sell up?

Almond White would also be more forgiving in a rental property though.

Can't believe some of these responses OP. I'd negotiate a discount, not credit note.

So you didn't notice anything wrong with the colour until you saw the paint pots?

@Silverfinch the boiler is brand new and it’s got a new kitchen but I know what you mean. We’d probably have to borrow again if anything else happens until we build up some reserves again. I’ve never left a tenant with something broken. We probably should have sold it.

@happinessischocolate I already thought it didn’t look as I was expecting it to. Not much contrast with the skirts.

I prefer Jasmine white. Looks clean and fresh for far longer in years than lesser shades eg Almond.
I hate Almond white - too much on the way to magnolia.
As you're not going to live there why does it matter?

Having been through colour choices on a rental recently Almond white is actually more expensive. I went for Gardenia.

When we had our house re-plastered and painted, we had a specially mixed paint. The decorators managed to splash a different colour on some bits at the front, and instead of mixing the paint to cover them, they tried to cover them with dabs of a commercial paint; which was about 5 shades different! I don't know whether they thought we wouldn't notice little squares of a totally different colour. We insisted they repaint the whole thing.

Al - mund sounds nothing like Jas-mine.

This has to be one of the nuttier things I have read on Mumsnet and God knows, there have been a lot.

I'd ring the decorator, tell him he's painted the house the wrong colour, if he argues the toss just leave it and don't use him again. If he's receptive and will talk about it, agree to pay for his labour but not the paint. I'd also tell him he left it in a bit of a mess and you've spent hours scraping paint off everything (unless he's due back and simply hasn't done that yet)

Just done my house in Jasmine White. I like Almond White for some things but the JW is cleaner and fresher to my mind, and outside it takes sunlight better. AW can look a bit, well, grey/grubby by comparison. But you should get what you ordered, all the same.

AW is not like magnolia.

A good decorator will not leave drips or splashes. Any job that is unavoidably splashy, like rollering with a thick sheepskin to get texture, they should mask off, bag up, or sheet up everything else. With jobs that aren't so splashy, they ought not to be dripping in the first place. Paint should go from pot to brush to object to be painted without getting on things in-between. It's as quick to do it right as to do it badly. Quicker, if you clear up after yourself, as you should.
A tip for amateur painters doing spirit-based paint on woodwork- put the can of paint in a large plastic pot or broad-bottomed bucket. If it does drip a little as you take the brush out ( and spirit based gloss does tend to) and/or any paint runs down the can's outside, it will stay in the bucket. Even your dustsheet stays clean, so you don't walk drips all over it.😇

I've tried it in every accent I can think of, and they still don't sound at all the same to me. I my Northern accent there's no way they could be mixed up!

I just keep trying to imagine someone saying jaahs-min. Reminds me of the elecution lady in Singin’ in the Rain.

And if anyone does say it that way, what other words are they pronouncing in unfathomable ways?

And me. Almond white is depressingly brownish. Jasmine white is so much nicer.

He probably got mixed up by the names, unless you wrote it down. I'd point it out and maybe negotiate a small discount but it's not that much of a big deal, would be more so if you were going to be living there but it's rental.