Here it is folks.
Me. Admitting I got it wrong.
And big time.
I was so excited to paint the exterior of this house.
My client, Sue loves colour. We had already painted the interior of her house and used colours from the Benjamin Moore Colour Stories palette. When she told me she wanted to have the prettiest house on the block, I knew we were not going to be looking at grays or taupes.
Her very talented brother had also installed an alpine garden in her front yard. All that was left to be done was paint the exterior.
We started with mock-ups.
Sue decided on blue. The inside of Sue’s home were soft turquoise and watery blues. So she loved these colours. Sue also loves being unique and Benjamin Moore had just released their new Williamsburg Collection and we both loved the idea of having a house colour that no-one else did.
We chose Benjamin Moore Anderson Blue CW-565. I loved this colour. Sue loved this colour.
There was a lot of love.
We sampled this colour on large boards and looked at it in different light. It was so pretty. It was going to be the prettiest house on the block. We bought paint. Our crew got to work applying the first coat.
That night I got an emergency call from Sue. Could I come over and take a look?
When I got there I froze. It was screaming bright blue. I felt awful.
I instantly knew what went wrong.
Anderson Blue on the bottom, Wythe Blue on the Top. I remember hoping neighbours would think the first coat was just the primer.
I counted my blessings that day that I wasn’t just the colour consultant for this project but that we were also the painter.
Sue still loved the blue. We just needed to tone it down. We looked at our samples again and went back to our second choice, Benjamin Moore Wythe Blue HC-143. Wythe Blue was still going to be fresh and pretty but it is a much more liveable colour because it is muddier than Anderson Blue. You can see how small the difference is on a small swatch compare to the photo above where the colour looks very different.
By staying with a colour similar to Anderson Blue there was a good chance Wythe Blue would cover well and we might not need a third coat. I won’t deny that I was holding my breath the next day when we started the second coat. But the paint covered well and we were left with not much bright blue paint.
If you are doing a major colour change on your house, ask the painter to let you know when the first coat will be going up and then be there to take a look. The cost of the extra paint to change the colour of the second is never going to be higher than the regret of painting your house the wrong colour. Even the pros get it wrong occasionally. If you find yourself in the same situation as I did, bite the bullet and fix it. This is your house and every time you pull into the driveway you should feel joy, not regret.
It will be worth the cost. I promise.
