EK Stone on walls and cabinet fronts, EK Rainbow Fog on trim. Taken with artificial light and perhaps flash, minimal natural light. Looks very different in the daytime - the Rainbow Fog is beautifully creamy in the diffuse north light. The third picture isn't very true to the color but shows what I did to paint a shower surround in the trim color (since it was really just a bath surround). Not shown in these photos, I later painted another surround around the sink, which works very well to hide all the toothpaste splatter. > > >

don't mix yellow beige's with pinkish beige's Those two kinds of beiges when placed together can create an odd, unnatural color harmony. In general, those two kinds of colors can benefit and look their best when used with other colors -- they don't make the easiest color partnership to work with. The yellow beige, pinky beige situation is not an impossible circumstance. I believe -- I know -- that there are color solutions for every color challenge. The yellow beige/pinky beige is one of the tougher challenges and sometimes just might be beyond the grasp of DIY colorists. white in a low light room will not make the room look brighter, just more dim. Not necessarily "more dim" because the quality of light will still be the quality of light. Dim is dim. If the room receives an amount of natural light that is best described as "dim", it's still going to be dim even if you paint the walls white. The quality of natural light didn't change. Only the wall color changed to white. Intuitively it would seem that white would be the antidote to cure dim. But that's not how it works because color and light are partners. White is comprised of many wavelengths of light and it needs a light source that is robust and full to look pretty . Dim light doesn't give white paint much in the way of wavelengths to reflect back into the space -- and that's what white does, reflect. The problem is this. The sunroom, which is really part of the house and we just call it that since it has 7 windows and gets alot of south and western light, is still casting a greenish cast to the Latte. It literally looks like a different color than what is in the living room. I will live with it but for the future could you tell me where I went wrong and what I should do for the future It's that color and light partnership thing again. One color isn't going to look the same in every room due to varying qualities of inherent light -- like you've discovered. Assuming that one color is going to work in every room probably isn't the best thing to assume. You still have to sample and evaluate each paint color in each room. Determining a color's undertone is just one small step. Rules about what kinds of undertones are suppose to go with -- or not go with -- other kinds of undertones do not deal with the reality of color in three-dimensional spaces. Remember how I said that once you establish a sense of undertone for a color, you still have to evaluate it carefully in the room, in the context that it will reside? We need to do that because we cannot look at colors in isolation, the appearance of any color is affected by what surrounds it. For the next time you have to make some color choices, I'd say don't get so wrapped around the rules and what everyone says is suppose to work or not work. Relax your expectations for paint colors; they don't have to be so tight and so high. Stay organized and trust your instincts and what you *see* and go with your gut more. Focus on your core paint color knowledge. You now understand undertones a whole lot better than you did before. You may have made a few mistakes in your opinion, but don't focus on the mistakes. Instead focus on what you learned. Use that experience to *see* color better next time. When the time comes to buy a new sofa, focus on how the fabric samples look in the room and do your best to make a decision. When the time comes to get a new stair runner, then deal with the stair runner. Don't look too far ahead. You can only effectively color for your now. Make the best color decisions that you can one at a time and any future color decisions will fall easier into place -- that's actually one way to interpret "building a color scheme".

I think she actually based some of her older/original colors on Donald Kaufman's pioneering FS paints. Not that they are perfect copies (all FS paints are dicey to copy exactly), but they (the DK colors) were the starting points. DK's FS paints certainly predated the launch of EK's ICI paint line. Anyway, that's what I recall she told me years ago. DK paint colors are also often not found in consumer fandecks, for the most part. That's not surprising considering how many colors a human eye can perceive. If you like a particular color, but want to broaden it toward FS, you can always play around with adding additional tints yourself. But you may find that's more expensive in trial materials than simply starting out with an "offcially" FS paint. I prefer FS paint and look in those lines first when I'm hunting for a color. But I am not unwilling to try and doctor regular paint, or go without FS if the right shade is not available from DK or Citron. For some reason the EK colors don't work for me (paint quality is OK), perhaps it's just the quality of my light, or my eyes. OTOH, DK and Citron colors are usually quite luscious and clear, when EK's equivalents seem sort of unsatisfying to me. Better than non-FS paint, but still not as vibrant as I might hope - more like the results I might have concocted on my own. (To be fair I haven't looked at her paints in about 5 years, so perhaps her newer colors could be better.) If you're interested in the physics and physiology of FS paints you should read the DK books by Donald Kaufman, Taffy Dahl and Suzanne Butterfield. I think I recall that in the Butterfield book there are actually formulas for playing around with making your own FS colors. The books are also pure eye candy for anyone who loves looking at painted surfaces. Also, if you're after better, or simply different, colors and not rigidly focused on the FS idea, you might find Farrow and Ball or Fine Paints of Europe colors satisfactory even though they are not FS. They are not any cheaper than good quality FS paint lines, though. And keep in mind that attempts to copy FS colors (or F&B or FPE) using the tints available at paint stores may not be as successful as you might think since the particular qualities of a desired color may depend on unusual, or better quality, tinting materials - and the minumum quantity of colorant that it's posible to dispense. (You can always buy a full shot of the colorant and add it in tiny quantities using syringes if you want to play around.) I should probably put a plug in here for C2 paint. I used to use it more, but the local dealer went out of business so it's harder to get for me now. But their colors are subtle and intriguing, though not oficially FS. I've had excellent luck doctoring their paint (with additional bits of their colorants.) I think for most people interested in FS paint, it's better to see if you can find a color you like in a FS line. I am a strong advocate of FS where possible, but overall I think getting the right shade of paint is more important than FS. It's hard enough to choose among the thousands of colors; don't make yourself more crazy chasing FS exclusively. Color (whether FS or not) has a much larger impact than FS, by itself, at least in my opinion. And you should know that there are some people whose eyes can't detect the difference, at least in a way perceptible to them. L

Used and spec'd my fair share of both. I'm a dedicated customer of each and they both will continue to be core brands in my line up of go-to paint/color solutions. They are two very different approaches to coloring your environment. Which one *is best* is totally dependent upon what it is you are trying to achieve a) with color and b) with a paint coating. They have a couple things in common: Â Need to acquire real paint samples to accurately evaluate EK & F&B colors. You can order hand-painted, large-size 8' x 11' EK chips. Farrow & Ball it is best to order sample cans and not rely so much on their fandeck/color chips; F&B's paint pots are guaranteed to match gallons. The F&B swatches are misleading, IMO and it's because of the 30-ish percent more pigment in their cans -- a sample can captures that factor better than the fandeck/chips. If you rely only on a F&B swatch, you're not going to get a fair preview or be able to form fair color expectations. Again, IMO. Â It is not possible to custom color *match* either one of these palettes in other brands. I've seen it attempted more times than I can count and to be very honest, I've never see a *match* that was remotely decent. Plenty of people have settled for their version of a *match* tho. And, hey, if they're happy with their *match*, then I'm happy for 'em. Personally, I'd never do it. If F&B or EK wasn't the right fit for whatever reason, like access or price, I'd just find another brand and another color -- easy for me to say because I know about 20 brand's palettes like the back of my own hand. I do, however, understand finally finding "the color" and wanting to try to get it by whatever means necessary.