Mostly, as the sickness allowed this weekend, we've been trying to finalize paint colors. We're very close, but I wish to note that the paint store completely FAILED to color-match a Farrow & Ball color (Radicchio) to a Benjamin Moore paint. It's almost entirely missing the pink tones, and ended up kind of ugly. Argh. I may end up just using F&B in Kavi's room, but I'm going to take one more stab at finding a BM color that I'm happy with first. I'm annoyed at the waste of $17 of paint, but on the other hand, I suppose I learned something useful, and it makes me feel a lot better that I didn't try to just match F&B colors for the first floor overall. Could have been disastrous.
And that's my life this weekend -- an obsession with paint. I'm supposed to give the final colors to Pam on Monday (and go pick up the F&B paints myself). This is my tentative plan, for the curious. Still subject to change, and needing Kevin-approval.
Master Painting Plan
1st floor
- foyer ceiling - FB Chinese Blue
- other 1st floor ceilings - FB Skimming Stone
- airlock
- staircase
- powder room
- pantry
- kitchen / eating area / mudroom
- family room
- dining room
- front parlor
- airlock walls (above wainscot) - FB Brassica?
- foyer & staircase walls (above chair rail height only) - FB Blackened
- foyer & staircase walls (below chair rail) - anaglypta pattern?
- butler's hallway walls - FB Downpipe
- butler's hallway ceiling - FB Downpipe
- powder room walls (above chair rail height only) - FB Wisteria wallpaper
- powder room walls (below chair rail - FB Drawing Room Blue
- pantry walls - FB Cook's Blue
- kitchen walls - FB Blackened?
- kitchen backsplash - anglytpa pattern?
- eating area & mudroom walls - FB Pavilion Gray? or Blackened?
- family room walls - FB Hague Blue
- dining room walls - FB Brinjal
- front parlor walls - FB Minster Green
- guest room bath walls - BM Revere Pewter - HC 172
- guest room bath ceiling - BM silver?
- other ceilings & walls - BM Linen White
- ceilings - BM Linen White
- Anand's room walls (south) - BM Great Barrington Green - HC 122
- Kavya's room walls (north) - BM Gypsy Pink
- playroom - BM Linen White
- kids' bath walls - BM Stonington Gray
- kids' bath ceiling - BM Linen White
Having recently bought a bunch of paints from Lowe’s (Valspar brand, which I highly recommend, actually), I got to chatting with the people who work at the paint counter. Like most other paint stores, Lowe’s claims it can match any color. But the employees said that they actually can’t. The reason is that you have to have the right base to get certain colors. This is especially true of dark or intense colors, which it sounds like you are using a lot of in your house. So if you take a generic base and try a match, you may not be able to physically get enough pigment into the can OR your paint will cover poorly and have poor painting qualities because there is too much pigment in it. They have a blue base that they use for certain shades of blue and a yellow base they use for various brighter colors. I’ll bet that F&B uses a particular base that Benjamin Moore doesn’t carry. I would definitely take the paint back to the store. No reason you should be out $17 when they failed to match!