How to colour match paint?

[scranderberry]

Hi, took a sample to Bunnings to match a colour for an off white door. The colour looked good in store, but getting home, we found it far too yellow and not glossy enough.

it was just a sample pot, so not a big deal, but, how can we get it right without going back multiple times?

[MitchellMc]

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community @scranderberry. It's brilliant to have you join us, and many thanks for your question about colour-matching.

So, first, I would question why it looked good in-store and then different when you got home. That could have been the store lights affecting it, so I'd check the colour in sunlight when you exit the store. You can try having the team run another colour match on your sample, but sometimes, a close match is as good as you can get. Are you patching the door or repainting the whole thing? Sometimes, the spectro machine can really nail the colour. However, in a vast amount of cases, if only the patched area is painted, it will be noticeable. I always recommend repainting the whole surface rather than spot repairs.

Regarding the gloss level, sample pots are low-sheen and used to find the correct colour before purchasing the style of paint you need. This avoids having this same issue but on a larger and more expensive paint quantity. Typically, once you have the colour correct, you'd purchase and paint the door with something like Dulux Aquanamel in gloss.

You might take your sample and the sample pot back in and ask the team whether they could dial back the yellow/ochre a tad on the sample.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Mitchell