apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I know high end paint stores will do color matching. Why not find the color you want somewhere else (whether it's in a pantone deck or a banana) and have it mixed to order?

Won't your local Janovic (or equivalent) mix the color for you to match a paint chip or some other example of the color you want? That way, the chemicals are all under control and properly combined.

If a room is dark, no amount of light-colored paint is going to help it. As the late, great Mark Hampton once said, the only way to make a dark room brighter is with more lamps. That being said, why not just go with the dark and make it glamorous? Dark chocolate walls (shiny, not matte), yellow upholstery, yellow-and-brown-and-white striped curtains, sisal or seagrass, et cetera. Don't fight the dark; learn to jazz up its coziness.

good point-but don't worry about mixing bases of as long as it's the same type of paint (the finish,eggshell,pearl etc) otherwise you may not get a consistant sheen on your wall, could look a bit splotchy or flash ( where one are is shinier then others)
for best results get a pro to mix it , but go to a smaller (not a chain) store as they may be more willing to play around and adjust your color on the spot!

I also vote for the small store, I've have good luck paint matching Jadeite green for my kitchen paint job. They should spend the time with you to get your paint 'just so' that a chain just doesn't have the time (or experience) to do.

Aulaire doesn't say where she is, but Brooklynites looking for a great small paint store that'll take time to work with you and mix the right paint (not sure what their color-matching abilities are like, though) is Sisters' Hardware on Fulton Street in Fort Greene. They carry Benjamin Moore paints.

i say go for it. i've mixed my own colors before with great results. the color on my living room wall has no less than four different colors mixed together, and not all were the same sheen or even the same brand! the final result turned out to be just the color i wanted and couldn't find on any paint deck (and the sheen is lovely, somewhere in between flat and eggshell, not splotchy at all)

pantoning it is easier in the long run.

The best bet is bring pantone chip or color swatch to have the paint store color match and mix it. Even Home Depot will do that - but I'd trust elsewhere first, where the REAL pros work, especially if you are really picky. This way if you are unhappy with it you can have them adjust or it will be easier to fix by hand.

I had a paint debacle recently (glidden paint from HD) one room I mixed paint by hand - but I wasn't going for an exact color mix like you. What I learned from it was:

1. If you do ever have to mix by hand, buy a BIG bucket & mix ALL the paint you need it at once. (a must)

2. Also if you want to buy brand "A" paint but color matched to a chip from brand "B" they won't do it if the store sells both brands. In that case I'd suggest matching to a pantone chip or try to remove branding.

3. If I had trusted my initial instinct as a designer, I would not have been in that mess!

4. I prefer Behr over Glidden.

best of luck!

My mom brought a hyacinth flower to home depot once and they matched it, they will match anything.

beware of yellows as their brightness factor seems to multiply mre than other colors-you may think a color is too pale on the chart but once a whole space is done in it the light reflection might burn your retinas(yellow is the most reflective colour)so pick one you think is just right then go at least one shade lighter!!

I agree with bball! Twice in my life I had selected what I thought was a light yellow, but when it was applied it was horribly glaring and gaudy. It wasn't noticeable either, until after I got a substantial amount done, so it must have been the reflective quality from one wall to the next.....be careful!

You can't match to the color in a photo because the image is made up of tiny dots of color, which the computer that does the matching can't read properly.

Pearl Paint used to do matching - I'm not sure if they still do. Their paint store isn't on Canal - it is on the street just south of it.

Living, etc. suggests doing the inside of a box instead of the usual flat sample. They say it will help you evaluate how the color looks reflecting off of itself.

whether you're mixing a colour yourself or having a paint store do it, make sure you mix more than you think you need so you have some touch-up paint left over.

if you are mixing yourself you should also consider using universal tints (sold in professional paint shops), which are highly concentrated pigments - just be sure to mix them into the paint thoroughly.

pearl paint (housepaint) is on lispenard street in nyc.

this isn't really a mixing answer, but I painted our dining room a dark yellow color that was very similar to what my monitor is showing on those paint chips. some people thought it looked like "pea soup" or greenish in morning, natural light, but at night it looked more ochre. everyone loved it, I believe it's what sold our house, and I miss it, surrounded by renters off-white now.

it was a miller historic color, named goldenrod. many different paint companies carry the historic color palette. I'm telling you about it because it only had yellow and black mixed into the white, no blue, no green, nothing, including optical brighteners (I happen to hate those) but it tricks your eye mightily depending on the light it is in. I go to a big place contractors go to so they don't mind telling you about what the recipe actually is. it looked quite horrid and bright for the first 2 coats (that were put on top of high quality primer). it took 3 to get it looking like it should, darker, more rich and less bright. professionals tell me this is not uncommon with yellows, which don't provide good coverage, whatever that means. anyway, I'm wondering if the color you want is actually the yellow and black mix, not the green.

regards,
trillium

How is it that I have been a regular customer of Pearl for years and did not know they have a home paint store? Cool! A fieldtrip is in the works...

Angst and nervous breakdowns over color? I love color and take it very serioulsy, but I think you need to take a deep breath...

I've mixed paints before and generally had pretty good results even across sheens and brands, but the main thing is that they BOTH need to be water-based, or they both need to be oil-based.

And yes, you'd better make enough the first time for both coats, if two are needed, because mixing yourself a 2nd time is almost impossible to get a dead-on match; it will almost always be just slightly off.

Yes, go for it, you can always paint it again, and again. Paint is cheap.

It took me over two weeks and several hundred dollars to paint my bedroom.

I'll never understand why people say "oh if you don't like it just paint over it! painting is so cheap!"

It's not really cheap in the long run.

I highly recommend the Benjamin Moore paint samples. You can test out colors for just $4 and that actually *IS* cheap. If you really don't want to use the BM paints then get a smaller size (quart?) and use that for a tester.

If you do get the paint mixed to a pantone chip (good idea), make sure you get enough paint at the outset to complete your job. It may be difficult to come up with an exact match the second time.