Please Don't Make Me Paint Your House Cloud White

Today is my first day of True Colour Expert Training with Maria Killam.

I wasn’t actively looking to take time off during the height of our busy season at Warline Painting to spend three days learning about the undertones of colour, but when I read a blog by Maria awhile back that I was so in agreement with, I knew I taking her course would a great experience.

Maria’s article was about CC-40, or in non-painter terms, Benjamin Moore Cloud White. In her article, she discussed how Cloud White has become such an industry standard paint colour for trim it has become over used, misused and an after thought. I couldn’t agree more.
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I deal with paint and colour all day long and I see how using colours together impacts the overall look of a room or house. Benjamin Moore Cloud White is pretty much the colour of every ceiling and most trim in almost every house we walk into. It also goes by the code of OC-130 and originally 967.

I don’t hate Cloud White, I just hate how its use is often never questioned. Even good designers, when asked about the trim colour, often just say “go with cloud white”. Here’s the the thing though. Cloud White doesn’t go with everything. And especially not when painting the exteriors of houses.

I walk my little boy to preschool every day and I pass by a house that was just recently painted by a competitor. I know who the painter is that did the work and he and his crew did a nice job on the house. The siding is a deep green with clear stained cedar shingles on a couple of the gables. The trim is white. I bet that if I took my fan deck up to the trim it would match perfectly to Cloud White. It is the wrong colour for the trim.
 
The trim needs to be creamier and softer against the deep green siding. Every time I walk by that house I think the same thing. It’s not so bad that it is glaringly obvious but it is one of those houses that if you were asked what you thought, you would likely say you like it but don’t love it.
 
I have no idea if the homeowners of the green house chose their house colours or if their painter helped them. What I do know is that its the wrong trim colour and having a painter that knows what they are talking about when it comes to colour, can make a difference when making those selections. If the homeowner had shown the colours to me, I would have said something along the lines of “that’s a really great colour and I think the way to make it look its best is to make the trim colour creamier and richer to compliment the green.”
 
That’s why I am taking Maria’s True Colour Expert Training. To get a better understanding of why colours work together and why they don’t. In the end, it will make a difference for my clients too. When we are done our work, I know they won’t just like their newly painted houses, they will love them.

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