Test a Paint Color on a Foam Board Before You Buy the Gallon

Every painter has a story about a color that looked perfect on a two-inch swatch and wrong on the wall. The swatch was lit by store lighting, held against a white card and judged from a foot away. Your living room has none of those things. That's why the first tip on our painting tips page is also the simplest one, and it costs you a quart of paint and a piece of foam board.

The foam board method

Our tip is called Finding Your True Colors, and it goes like this: buy only a quart of the color you want to use and paint it on a foam board. Place the painted board in different spots in a room to see how natural and artificial lighting affects the color. The board is portable, which is the whole point. A painted patch on the wall can only show you one corner of the room, and it can't move.

A foam board also gives you something a wall patch doesn't. You can hold it against the trim, the flooring, the countertop and the sofa and see how they get along. Give the board two coats so you're judging the real color rather than a thin first pass, and let it dry before you decide, because wet paint almost always reads differently than dry.

How East Texas light changes a color

Light in a Lindale or Tyler house isn't the light in a showroom. Many homes around here sit under big oaks and pines, with covered porches that shade the windows on the sunny side. A room with a south-facing window can look warm and golden by mid-afternoon, while the same room at 8 in the morning looks cooler and flatter. The paint doesn't change, but the light on it does all day long.

Bulbs matter as much as windows. Warm bulbs push a color toward yellow, cool white bulbs pull it toward blue, and dimmers change the picture again. The board is how you find out which version of the color you'll live with after dark, which is when most families are actually in the room.

Where to put the board

Move the board around and look at it more than once. Here's a routine that works:

• By the window in the morning, then again around midday and in the late afternoon.
• On the wall farthest from the window, where the room is dimmest.
• Against the trim, the flooring and any large furniture the color has to live with.
• In a corner and on a flat wall. Corners collect shadow and read darker.
• At night with your regular lamps on, and again with the overhead light.

Sheen changes color too

Sheen is the amount of shine in the paint, and it shifts how a color reads. Flat paint soaks up light, which hides bumps and patches on walls and ceilings but scuffs more easily. Eggshell and satin have a soft glow and hold up better to fingerprints, so they're common in living areas, hallways and bedrooms. Semi-gloss is harder and easier to wipe, which suits trim, doors, kitchens and baths.

If you can, test in the sheen you plan to use. A color in satin looks a little deeper than the same color in flat, and a glossy finish picks up every reflection in the room. If you're undecided between two sheens, ask for a small sample of each and compare them side by side in the same light.

Low VOC and the paint itself

Our crew works with recognized suppliers including Sherwin-Williams, Behr, Benjamin Moore and other reputable companies, and we can recommend a variety of low fume, eco-friendly products. Our painting tip on the subject is short: choose paint with low VOCs, which are often identified with a green seal. Low VOC paint means minimum odor, which matters in a house where people sleep and eat the same night the walls get painted.

Two other tips from the same page are worth knowing before you shop. We recommend one gallon for every 400 square feet, and textured, rough or unprimed surfaces may need more. And never apply latex, water-based paint over an oil finish, or the other way around. To check what's on the wall, put some rubbing alcohol on a dry white cloth and rub it on the surface. If the paint softens and transfers to the cloth, it's water-based latex.

Let a painter help you choose

You don't have to pick alone. When you request a free estimate, a painting professional visits your home to discuss your project in detail and help with color selection. That visit is a good time to pull out the foam board and talk through the room. Colors get confirmed before work is scheduled, since work begins only once color selections and work specifications are settled and the contract is signed.

Take your time with it. A quart and a board are a small step next to walls you'll look at for years, and a color you've watched for a couple of days is a color you'll be glad to see when the job is done. When you're ready, call Reeves Painting at (903) 360-3570 and we'll set up a visit anywhere in Lindale, Tyler, Longview or the surrounding area.