Paint has no colour of its own. It only has the colour of
whatever light is falling on it, which in a Vancouver house changes
completely between breakfast and dinner.
Which way does the room face?
It is the first question we ask and most people have never thought about
it. North-facing rooms get cool, flat, blueish light all day.
A grey that looked warm in the shop will go cold and slightly purple in
there. South-facing rooms get the opposite problem: warm light most of the
day that pushes creams toward yellow.
West-facing rooms are the tricky ones. Neutral in the morning, then very
warm and very orange for two hours in the evening, which is precisely when
you are usually in them.
Why we leave samples for two days
Not two minutes, and not on a card. We paint patches straight onto your
wall, big enough to actually read, in more than one place in the room. Then
we go away and you look at them in the morning, in the afternoon and with
the lamps on.
It costs us a return visit and it is the cheapest thing we do, because a
repaint costs everybody far more.
The white problem
There is no such thing as white paint. Every white leans somewhere —
yellow, pink, green or grey — and next to your ceiling, your trim and
your floor it will lean visibly. If you want a room to feel bright, the
answer is usually a warmer white than you think, not a cleaner one.
What we won't do
We won't tell you a colour is wrong because we don't like it. It's your
house and you're the one living in it. We will tell you if it's going to
behave differently than you expect in that particular room, and then we'll
paint whatever you decide.
