How well can a paint sample be matched to another brand?

Question

Hi everyone,

My paint question has to do with bringing a paint swatch from one brand to another store and asking that second place to match the color.

Specifically, I've found a Ben Moore color I love that would work fabulously in our current and future flips. However, I get a discount on Sherwin-Williams through our REIA, and my contractor also gets a good price on Behr. So I think I can save a good amount by going w/a different brand (much as I love Benjamin Moore personally, this is business!).

So my question isn't about which brand is the best (I know that's been covered here before), but rather - if I bring my Ben Moore sample to Sherwin-Williams or Behr, how well will they match it?

Thanks for any help!

Karin

Account Closed · Answer

For something in that color range, you should have no problem getting a good match at Home Depot on Behr or Glidden, if that's where your contractor gets a discount.

Phil Z. · Answer

I would stick with neutral cream.  For 'pop' rooms I would use the darker variations on the paint sample card.

Karin Crompton · Answer

Thank you both. It's Tapestry Beige, which is very light and neutral. I saw it at someone else's flip the other day and knew right away that it's one I want to incorporate into my projects. The flipper I met had used it in just a couple of impact rooms, then used a less expensive paint for the rest of the house; but I'm going to wind up using quite a bit of this color in my current flip and wanted to figure out how to do so in a cost-effective way.

And K. Marie Poe, I'm nerdy like that, too! I have blocks of different colors all over the walls right now. (The goal, of course, being to figure out what works and use the same ones repeatedly in the future! But for now, it's all about the samples.)

Thanks!

Phil Z. · Answer

They can match the color well.. that shouldn't be an issue.

Account Closed · Answer

I've had mostly good luck with color matches at Sherwin Williams, especially in the whites, tans and grays.  I've had some disasters with yellows and greens.  Some Ben Moore colors, especially deep tones, have special bases and are hard to recreate at any other paint store.  Since you said it was for a flip, I'm assuming the color is not too far out of the ordinary.  Instead of the small commercial paint color swatch, I make a good sized sample using a primer coat and with the actual paint I want to recreate at SW.  I'm nerdy like that.

Kyle J. · Answer

Whenever I've had this done it's come out to be pretty much an exact match. After they mix it for you, jusy brush a little on the sample and see how it matches up after it dries. If it's not close enough have them redo it. But color-matching at all the big places is done by a computer so there shouldn't be any problem matching it.