In Dulux We Trust

I’ve painted a lot in my life. I think it started when I was in college. I put an ad in the Lansing State Journal looking for an apartment that I could fix up in exchange for cheap rent. A guy called and said he had a studio apartment in the basement of a house that hadn’t been lived in for several years. We agreed on the miniscule sum of $150 a month and I got to work clearing away debris, cleaning out years of dirt and dead bugs and painting.

Over the years I’ve painted rooms multiple times in three different houses, not including a bedroom and two bathrooms that my hairdresser's wife paid me to paint when I was laid off from a corporate job after 9/11. And in so doing, I’ve acquired a vast amount of experience with U.S. paint brands, which includes scrutinizing color swatches and choosing paint colors.

Last year, when we decided to impose on Gareth’s mother for an indeterminate amount of time while we figured out where we wanted to live, I volunteered to do some decorating for her to show my appreciation for her hospitality. I started by wallpapering her upstairs bathroom (which went remarkably well considering I’d never wallpapered before) and then I moved on to her downstairs bathroom, which she asked to have painted. We picked up several swatches and she chose a Dulux color called Antique Lace – similar in tone to very weak tea. I bought a 2.5 liter tin and started to paint…the color that the guy at B&Q had mixed for me was significantly redder than the swatch, which had never happened to me before. I wanted to return the paint to B&Q and try another color, but having lived through WWII, Gareth’s mother was adamant about not wasting it, so I combined it with a tin of light yellow paint to try to dilute the red. Needless to say, I was never satisfied with the result.

Now we move on to my current – and hopefully last – painting project: our new flat. I found a local Jewson (a smaller version of Home Depot), pulled a handful of swatches from the display and, after much consultation with Gareth, picked four colors – two bold accent colors, a softer color for the majority of the flat and a white for the ceilings and woodwork. I had 1-liter tins mixed as color samples and headed back to the flat.

The white (Subtle Ivory) and the accent colors (Autumn Fern and Salsa Melt) were fine and exactly what I had expected. The fourth color, Khaki Mists, which was intended for use on at least two-thirds of the walls, seemed greener than I had envisioned. I figured it was a trick of the light or something, and didn’t think to compare it with the swatch, probably because I had forgotten about the Antique Lace incident by then and trusted that the mixed color was identical to the swatch.

More discussions and scrutinizing took place, and we decided we were happy with all the colors, including Khaki Mists. So I called Jewson and ordered several tins. When I opened the first 5-liter tin of Khaki Mists, much to my shock, it was not the soft, sophisticated green that was all over my living room walls, but a very tan taupe. Unfortunately, the green that I had based my decision on turned out to be the one that did not match the swatch and the tan was the real Khaki Mists.

I called Gareth, who was still at the house in St. Andrews, trying not to sound distraught. He talked me into painting a couple of walls to see if I could live with it before buying more paint. Meanwhile, he described my dilemma to his sister, who told him she had heard of color issues with Dulux. He also searched the web and came across a story by a woman who ended up with pink instead of the dark red she had expected: http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/household-products/dulux/139020/

From a coverage standpoint, I think Dulux beats many brands I’ve used in the U.S. It’s a complete mystery to me, however, that a paint company would have color mixing problems in the 21st century, especially since I haven’t experienced them elsewhere. It’s bad enough having to do all that work without the worry that your color choice isn’t what you think it is.