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I wanted a nice light grey for my bedroom. For an entire week I kept putting the swatch on all sorts of different parts of the wall. I had other swatch squares as well and kept coming back to my first choice. Stared at this color until I couldn't stare anymore, through all times of the day as well. I knew the grey, like almost ALL greys, had an undertone (bluish) but it was absolutely not present when on the wall as I continued to look at it throughout the week. It continued to come off as the absolute perfect light grey that I wanted.
That being said, even after I did some rearranging, the paint STILL shows subtle signs of a blue hue. So, I know I made a huge mistake (I guess) and this will go down as a huge lesson learned, but what would you all do here? is this really what I have to do? Buy new BLINDS, comforter, artwork, etc? Or suck it up and repaint this myself this weekend? I think I already kinda know the answer, but I guess I'm just looking for a little support from any fellow "paint regretters"
I would repaint it too, but first go to the paint store get samples of a gray color you like then put it on the wall . Stand back see which one looks like the gray you want. This will save money and you wont be painting a color again thats not what you want.
I've been there. I bought a paint color that looked gray for my bathroom and then after having it up on the walls, it looked like it had some type of purple undertone. I hate purple.
I repainted it a silver/gray color. You can buy one of those small sizes to try on the wall yourself. Just repaint---otherwise you will hate it everyday. Why come home to a place you dislike when it's an easy fix?
I did that with yellow in my computer room. The swatch looked great on the wall..not too bright. But once it got on the wall ...holy cow..way too bold. I had a second coat to do and what I did was get a 5 gallon bucket, a gallon of white paint and mixed that second can of yellow with the white and did my second coat. AND...it came out perfect...just the yellow I was imagining.
Unless I was planning to paint a neutral color (cream, white) I would not pay someone to paint only because those swatches can be deceiving. What looks good in 4 inches can look very different in a 10x10 room.
Another tidbit I read is that when you like a swatch go for the next shade lighter when you go to paint.
A big help is to ask the paint store for a look at the color formula. There will be words like cyan, maroon, gold, ochre etc which are the tiny drops of intense color that gets mixed to make your shade. The grey i chose looks pure grey to me. But surprisingly it used maroon and gold to tame it. Yours must have had a touch of something else that dominated at room scale.
It might look good with black furnishings. Or a scheme of navy and dark green or burgundy with brownwood furniture.
@K’Ledgebldr, ha, well it would only need one gallon (and a brush and roller), and it probably won’t come out as nice with me doing it, but still, you’re right.
@TMSretired it really is amazing just HOW deceiving though. To think I looked at this thing for almost a WEEK straight and was beyond confident in the light grey and then bam, not only no light grey, but extreme baby blue. I’m actually dead serious that there should at least be some sort of notation/warning on the swatches about these undertones. I know I’m not the first who’s experienced this and won’t be the last, but $400 is an extremely difficult pill to swallow. Live and learn, I guess
If you still have the swatch and the can. Bring it to the store and make sure they uses the correct base for that color. We painted our old kitchen a tangerine color because I LOVE color. Long story short, it was over granny smith green and took a lot of primer to get rid of the green. I left he house as it was going on an came back to Home Depot orange. I did the mature thing and cried. I called the Benjamin Moore store and they knew me due to the number of times I had been in there picking the color. They immediately told me to bring in the can. Turned out they used the wrong base and it was the reason my kitchen looked like it did. They repainted it for me.
If you still have the swatch and the can. Bring it to the store and make sure they uses the correct base for that color. We painted our old kitchen a tangerine color because I LOVE color. Long story short, it was over granny smith green and took a lot of primer to get rid of the green. I left he house as it was going on an came back to Home Depot orange. I did the mature thing and cried. I called the Benjamin Moore store and they knew me due to the number of times I had been in there picking the color. They immediately told me to bring in the can. Turned out they used the wrong base and it was the reason my kitchen looked like it did. They repainted it for me.
Appreciate the response, but it was definitely the color of the swatch. I even put the swatch against the paint and it was a perfect match. I guess it was all just an illusion of seeing it grey in the small square as opposed to the entire room painted. Officially going with a repaint this Saturday. I’ll take the 4 hours, maybe even get away with one nice coat, and move on from this disaster. Ugh, what a shame…
The answer is almost always to re-paint rather than re-decorate. I have seen people here talk about re-decorating an entire house because the paint color they picked didn't work out and clashed with their furniture and they didn't want to re-paint! I can't even fathom.
I'm sorry that your paint color did not work out as planned. It's a lesson many (if not most) of us learned the first time they paint a room in their life and then we never make that mistake again. Good luck.
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