The Colour Merry-go-round

I think we’ve both lost track of the colours that we have (temporarily) settled on for the walls. Holding a tiny colour swatch up against a cupboard door just doesn’t do it. Neither, it seems, does painting a piece of lining paper with a matchpot and propping the cupboard door up against that. In both cases, slapping the colour on a wall and switching to a large expanse makes things look very different.

We discarded the options we had after our 50 Shades of White lining paper test [actually it was five different colours]. We settled on a Laura Ashley colour called Pearl, a bit like a very light grey.

More head scratching; trying mentally to extend my test patch, pearl began to look a bit dull. We [that’s the royal we] wanted something a bit more chirpy. Moving our sample of Dulux Morning Light [one of those initial 5 samples] around into different lights it seemed fine with the cupboard door and did look chirpy. It’s one of the Dulux “Light & Space” range which is supposed to micro thingies that reflect more light.

OK, I should be able to get it mixed up in Dulux’s “Kitchen” paint to resist grease. We could do with the Light & Space micro thingies in the hall which has now lost some of its light. On Saturday, I high-tailed it to the Dulux trade centre in Bletchley.

I muttered “Morning Light” along with “Light & Space” and the lady looked bemused. She’d never heard of either the colour or the finish. This was odd; it’s the only paint type that this colour is available in off the shelf.

“What about Kitchen?”, I rejoined. More bemused looks ensued. She consulted the infernal computer and reeled off a few finishes that she thought she could manage. None sounded familiar. If I went back with the wrong finishes, I’d be for the high jump. I told her so and left.

I went to the trade paint supplier back near home and told the helpful chap there my sad story. He said he could mix me a Morning Light facsimile in a Johnstone’s washable base. He could also do it in a Dulux “Diamond” base … but that’d be £85 for 5 litres, enough to make Farrow & Ball prices look quite reasonable. I bought 10 litres of Johnstone’s.

I slapped some on one wall of our hallway. Francine’s face was less than promising. I covered a large, mainly plain wall in the dining area. Francine’s face remained less than promising. It seemed quite sunny to me, though I was in a minority, but I had to agree that it didn’t look right with the cupboard door. What completely sunk it was that it didn’t look right with one of Francine’s photos, destined to hang on it. [I’ll use it to paint my office, when I get it.]

Losing the will to live, we decided to try good old Brilliant White. Casa Libélula had been white head to toe, as is quite usual in Spain, and we liked the airy feel it gave in an essentially open plan space. I smothered a few walls in Brilliant White. It looked OK and Francine’s photograph looked fine.

If anything was wrong, it was that the bright white made our Ivory cupboard door look a little drab. This was a bit of a shame ‘cos the ivory counterpoint to an Oxford blue island unit was supposed to be something of a feature.

On Monday morning, clearly much refreshed, Francine came up with another option: Farrow& Ball “Wimbourne White” – white with just a touch of yellow-ish. Running short of time to finish before the units arrived on Wednesday, I high-tailed it to our local trade retailed for a matchpot. It looked great with the door and all our other bits. I went and bought another 10 litres of Johnstone’s facsimile and set about over-painting all the mist coat in the entire kitchen and dining area.

We like it and so does Francine’s photograph. We may be in business. Let’s hope this is the very last change of mind and colour.

Did you know that “mist” in German can be translated as shit? I’m going to redefine “mist coat” as a coat of paint that you thought would be OK but that just doesn’t work.