AKL Guide to White Paint
White paint can transform a space. The trick? Finding the right shade. There’s lots to consider, including tones and lighting. Our quick tips should help demystify the process. Plus we’re sharing seven of our fave shades as a starting point. Ready? Let’s talk paint.
Consider your space
Think about the existing tones – are they on the warm or cool side? Perhaps you have an entryway with a lot of rich wood tones. A white paint with warm undertones (yellow, orange, pink, or red) is ideal. If you’re updating a bathroom, then you want the space to be light, clean, and bright, so go with a white paint that has cool undertones, like blue, green, or purple. Furniture colors can also affect your color perception. For neutral furniture, a creamy white works best. For bolder furniture, go with a cooler stark white to really make the colors pop.
Quick tip: Not sure how to figure out the undertones? Grab a piece of printer paper. Hold it up to each white paint you like. This will help you be able to see the undertones more clearly. Or, take a photo with your phone of all the swatches hung up on the wall next to each other. It’s another way to reveal the undertones and make it easier to compare.
Do a little research
Most paint companies have a wealth of information about their colors online and will even tell you what undertones, LRV (we’ll talk about that more later), and complimenting tones. But, as we all know, the computer screen is not the best depiction of how a color will actually look in your space. This is where your local paint store comes in. We prefer and love Benjamin Moore in Lake Oswego.
Swatches are a good starting point and they’re usually free. They’re also easy to move around a space to see how the color changes with the lighting. Check with your preferred paint vendor/store and ask if they have the larger sample sheets. These are free as well but usually not displayed on the floor. Having a large sample sheet gives your eye much more to look at on the wall!
When working with clients we like to order draw downs. This is when your paint store will mix up your paint sample colors and paint it onto a piece of sample board for you to see its true dried color. We like to leave these with our clients to hang on the wall and watch over a few days to see how it feels in a space with multiple types of lighting throughout the day.
You can also sample the color(s) you love on walls, ceilings, and trim. Sample pots typically cost anywhere from $5-10 depending on the company.
Notice natural lighting
Is it a south facing room that gets filled with a ton of natural light? Cooler whites that lean blue, gray, or even purple will work best here. Got a north facing space that rarely sees sunlight? Consider an off-white or warm white, which will help offset some of the cooler, bluish tones. For east-facing spaces, color selection is tricky, as it will appear more vibrant before noon and duller as the day wears on. Best to go with an off-white or neutral color. West-facing rooms can be cool and bluish in the morning, warm and glowing in the afternoon, and blindingly bright by end of day. Think creamier whites or even a blush-toned white for west-facing rooms as these tones will best adjust to the ever-changing light throughout the day.
Quick tip: Paint samples in a store can often look completely different when you get them home. That’s because the store’s fluorescent lighting gives off a bluish-green tone. Even your home’s incandescent, halogen, and LED lights can affect the color. That’s why it’s so important to sample paint first in different rooms, on opposite walls and at different times of day.
Let’s talk LRV
First things first: LRV is an acronym for Light Reflectance Value, which is a measuring system of a paint color. It simply measures the percentage of light that is reflected from a surface. The higher the number, the more light that paint color reflects. This means that the more “white” a paint color is, the higher the number will be on a scale of 0-100. Say you’re painting a bathroom and want it to be super bright. You’ll want to go for a higher LRV. Keep in mind that a higher LRV will also reflect surrounding colors in the room, so depending on your light sources and the direction your home faces, this can change the way the color feels in real life.
