WHAT? You cannot match my paint color sample??!!!

[JDgreen227]

I painted the hallway walls and stairway to the basement a light ivory color with eggshell latex when they were new 12 years ago, and the paint is scuffed in many places. Decided to get a gallon of paint from Menards for touch up purposes, and I took along a sample of the paint on both wood and drywall for comparison. The paint on the walls has NOT faded but because it gets a lot of natural sunlight and is brightly lit at night, any color mismatch would be apparent but my samples were an exact match for daytime sunlight. The guy at Menards tried twice to match my samples, both gallons he mixed came out darker than the hue I wanted. He told me "There is something wrong with your color samples..." (!!!!!!) and suggested that I just buy a paint using one of their (Dutch Boy brand) stock colors. Or: "You can buy these two gallons and mix them together so they match and then repaint the hall and stairway. Problem is, the stairway requires a ladder and scaffolding to reach much of it, and the hallway color is the same as the bedroom it leads into with shared wall area.

Is it REALLY that hard for a store to match paint colors, or did I just end up with an incompetent and ignorant employee?

 

[RobertBrown]

If you really want a perfect match you have to go to Sherwin Williams, Benjamin Moore or a "paint supplier". This is expensive but you will get a better quality covering. With the shade you have it's going to be a crap shoot even still.
What did you use for a sample?

 

[JDgreen227]

If you really want a perfect match you have to go to Sherwin Williams, Benjamin Moore or a "paint supplier". This is expensive but you will get a better quality covering. With the shade you have it's going to be a crap shoot even still.
What did you use for a sample?

In original post it notes I took along a sample of the paint on both wood and drywall...about a 2 1/2" square of each. I don't have any problem with going to a store like Sherwin Williams, but as I was at Menards to pick up supplies like sandpaper, roller covers, spackling compound, etc. I thought it would make sense to get paint at the same time. The paint stores like SW or BM are NOT open on Sundays.

 

[MikePA]

We've gotten really good matches at our local Ace Hardware store. We took in the lid of the empty paint we wanted to match, a shade of red. They did a great job of matching and the only one who can see the difference is me, since I know where I touched things up.

 

[Duwop]

Seriously, you expect to get a match 12 years after the fact, manufactures blends,colors and tint are different not to mention batches. If you ever get a "Perfect" match it is by chance, luck or both. I know we want to believe that computers and spectrum analysis is so great compared to the complexities of color, but Come on for crying out loud!

 

[MikePA]

A couple of questions/observations...No offense meant, just trying to understand.

I took along a sample of the paint on both wood and drywall for comparison.

How were these samples created, from paint from the original can?

The paint on the walls has NOT faded but because it gets a lot of natural sunlight...

Just curious why you'd think 12 years of natural sunlight would not fade the paint?

The guy at Menards tried twice to match my samples, both gallons he mixed came out darker than the hue I wanted.

Did you determine this by painting the Menard's paint on the samples you brought and letting it dry?

I could understand the Menard's paint not matching the paint on the wall, but I can't see why they couldn't match the samples you brought.

 

[zzvyb6]

Why don't you just go to their paint swatch wall and choose a sample (with a name and a mixture formula) that matches the sample you took in? That's why I never paint with a 'neutral' color. Besides being boring, 50's -60's, dull , lifeless and cold, I believe its also hard to match. One dribble from the mixed sample done previously will screw it up. The ones mixed before me always seem to be the colors NO normal person would paint in a house, but are the ones they let their kids pick out.

My whole house interior is painted in a color spectrum we call mustard, relish and catsup. Every wall is painted a different one of these three colors. Nothing boring in here. Colors match those of all of our stained glass lights and windows.

 

[zzvyb6]

You know that fresh wet paint is darker than the dried version, right? As it dries, it lightens up. If it's just a hallway, you probably need to repaint it anyways. I'm not seeing this as a huge problem.

 

[aczlan]

Why don't you just go to their paint swatch wall and choose a sample (with a name and a mixture formula) that matches the sample you took in? That's why I never paint with a 'neutral' color. Besides being boring, 50's -60's, dull , lifeless and cold, I believe its also hard to match. One dribble from the mixed sample done previously will screw it up. The ones mixed before me always seem to be the colors NO normal person would paint in a house, but are the ones they let their kids pick out.

We did that but within 2 years, Lowes had dropped that sample, so they had to go by the mix code on the last can.

Aaron Z

 

[yelbike]

Seriously, you expect to get a match 12 years after the fact, manufactures blends,colors and tint are different not to mention batches. If you ever get a "Perfect" match it is by chance, luck or both. I know we want to believe that computers and spectrum analysis is so great compared to the complexities of color, but Come on for crying out loud!

Yes after twelve years you can seriously get a paint match. The sample is in front of the clerk.

To the op, I bet you'd get a closer match from the "likely" better trained staff from actual paint store. I use cloverdale, I don't know if they are in the US, only cause they give me a CAA(AAA) discount.

Try this set up if you have to paint all of it, just don't show the safety police.