Free colour cards, colour mixing, colour advice
Most of the following companies offer free colour cards, if you ask nicely. Some request that you subscribe first to their email newsletter, which is no bad thing if you are interested in their products! Some have online samples and when you find colours you like, you can order sample pots. This is a resource for reference purposes, and is not necessarily an endorsement of the quality or suitability of any of the paints.
Craig & Rose online colours
Dulux heritage, Glidden colour cards -from ICI
Johnstones Trade colour card and Inspired collection colour card from Johnstones
Little Greene Paints colour card with new flying chips!
Milk Paint colours online from the Blueberry Store
Morris and Co for a variety of designer paints including Sanderson and Zoffany.
Traditional Paint Company supplies lime wash in hundreds of colours
Sample paint pots
When you have narrowed down your choice, sample pots are the next recommended step. It would be nice if they were free, but most companies will charge from £1 to £3.50 plus P&P. But this is small change compared to the cost of gambling and losing on a gallon of wall paint, especially if you have paid a professional to apply it.
Eco, green, organic, confused
In amongst the above list of colour cards you will find some very niche suppliers and it requires a lot of research to understand the differences between their products.
Designer, Francoise Murat, wrote a very informative article on Tepilo about the journey, if not odyssey, that she embarked on when meeting a brief to decorate a home with eco paint. From trying to work out what an eco paint really is, to finding reliable suppliers, to colour cards, to sample pots, right through to completion, it wasn’t easy.
Ecos paint colour cards, hand-painted
Nutshell Natural paints had painted swatch
Earthborn paints online colour cards. Contact local Earthborn stockist for the real thing.
Biofa natural paints – The Biofa product catalogue
Livos Natural paint colours online
Aglaia natural paints colour brochure (PDF) plus also available in Beeck colour ranges –
Specialist paint colour services
Holman Specialist Paints have about 150,000 colours on their database. Their “thing” is colour matching anything, and they also tint paints for manufacturers where the technicalities are beyond the manufacturer.
As an example, they colour match Zinsser BIN and Coverstain, not close to the top coat colour, but exactly to the top coat colour. They also offer immaculate colour matching in Tikkurila paints, Manor Coatings, Mathys… We use Holmans whenever we need high spec paints for specific jobs matched exactly in the right colours. i.e. all the time! Can’t recommend them highly enough.
Historic paint colour services
One company that you might want to check out for historic colours is Papers and Paints. The man behind the company is responsible for developing the colour ranges for Dulux (Heritage) and other well known paint companies.
They do charge for their own in-house traditional paint colour cards but the ranges are their own, researched and developed in-house. Again, unlike the claims of most suppliers with the Magic Eye, they can mix literally any colour matched exactly to an actual paint sample or item of furniture, piece of wallpaper or fabric. So if you need more than “close enough“, or it isn’t good enough that “it falls inbetween the closest colours in our range, now you now where to go.
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Basis of a TP recommendation | Kitchens | Furniture
Since day one we have been committed to sharing our hard earned knowledge with readers. In our case studies we openly explain how we prepare and paint kitchens and furniture. We also share decades of specialist decorating experience in TP blog articles in the hope that all DIY and trade decorators can take away and use our ideas to achieve better, more professional results.
Contact Paul at Traditional Painter for general enquiries
01604 767506
enquiries@traditionalpainter.com
