• Apr 26, 2014

Care when using Whites

Whites are a fashionable colour at the moment both inside & out. Care has to be taken not to go too white. White straight from the tin is a no no for me. It's just too white for a start if you compare it with white tiles, white kitchen cabinets, white light switches etc. you will usually find that they are actually very light greys, they still look white but they do have some strength in colour.

If you were to use straight out white beside these your kitchen or tiles could look grey in comparison. The more colour you get into a white will give better cover strength for the paint & make the finished job look a lot more solid . Extremely light whites can take more coats & still not look quite right. Then trying to do maintenance by touching up marks becomes difficult with multiple coats needed to cover a mark.

If there are no other whites in tiles, kitchen etc. then it is much safer to go that bit darker because there is no white to show in comparison to that wall colour. The darker your floors & cabinetry the darker you can go on walls & they will still look white, remember colour is relative to its surroundings a  mid-grey will look light in colour around darker colours but will look quite dark around light colours.

A good tip inside is to keep the ceilings the same colour as the walls & even the trim if going quite light this stops colour change like white ceilings to slightly tinted walls the comparison between the 2 shows the colour in the wall however if they are the same colour it will just look white or very close to it.

Outside we can go even darker, extreme light  washes out colour dramatically to try & a achieve the same colour outside as inside you can just about double the strength. So whites can be quite grey looking on a chip but will still look white outside as long as there is no true whites around which is rare.

A Bathroom Painting Sequence

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