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We've got a hand-made painted wood kitchen in the house we recently bought. It's one of the features that attracted us to the house.
I'm making a few alterations and a few new pieces but in order to match the doors I've asked the local company who made it to make me a cupboard door. he uses a decent pine as a base.
The paint used is Farrow & Ball Estate Eggshell. I've not used it before. So when I asked the carpenter if that's what I should use (I've got half a tin left me by the previous owner) he went into a minor rage: "horrible stuff, look at this (pressing thumb onto a piece he painted yesterday and leaving a mark) - takes forever to dry, you're supposed to use their own primer - and that makes it worse - we get Johnstones, and our place matches Farrow & Balls colours"
So, please enlighten me. I'll have quite a few pieces of raw pine to paint plus a bit of touching up of the existing. And some of the cupboards will need knots sanding down and treated with knotting then re-painting.
I was planning to go to my local Dulux shop and get them to match a piece. Or should I ignore the carpenter and cough up the Farrow & Ball tax? And use their primer too? And knotting compound - does F&B not like that?
We have it and it is not a robust paint.
Getting a match with Johnstone's etc can be hit and miss, some good some nowhere near
When I've used it it was quick enough to dry, eas to clean up as water based. Never used FB primer or undercoat
It's expensive for what it is
I use dulux professional paints. Mainly because there is a dulux place withing walking distance of me. Much more expensive than paints aimed at DIYers but much better.
They can colour match and have a huge range of available colours because they mix on the spot while you wait
Little Green is better than Farrow and Ball - they're both massively overpriced though.
If you have an oddball colour, theres a good chance Dulux Heritage range will have it these days (if you can't guess from the name, it's setup to compete with F&B)
OTOH, we've never had any issues with the F&B paint we've used. Some colours seem to be better than others though
If you've got a lot to do, wouldn't it be easier just to sand it all and repaint? An exact match won't matter then.
We have a few things painted in modern eggshell (the hardest wearing) and it is very nice. Having tried a few other paints Farrow and Ball paint seems good quality and nice to use.
Is the carpenter aware that paints can take a good number of weeks before the paint has fully hardened?
Yes, TJ, I have an account with my Dulux Decorator Centre which is fairly local and that was my plan. Well it's not that local, but it's near the pub that used to be my local :o)
I've not used F&B but I've made a couple of "TV units and bookcases" for customers which they* have painted and I was impressed with the results.
*I refuse to do any "wet trades" for customers. I hate them (not the customer, they're all lovely) and I'm not very good at it.
No, tthew. 28 doors and drawers plus cabinet surrounds means we're sticking with what we've got.
Your local large B&Q should be able to colour match with Valspar scrubbable/wipe clean Matt paint
It's good stuff
We've tried F&B in the past and found it to be expensive and not very good.
Recent painted furniture has been Valspar from B&Q which has proved to be far superior.
I've done a few things with it now.
I repainted our whole kitchen recently with Estate Eggshell. I normally wouldn't choose a paint that has s****y high street showrooms but the gf had half a tin left over from using it previously and she's a big F&B fan.
I used Estate Eggshell on this here desk, but sprayed, not brushed. Obviously that has to be fairly hard wearing.
Didn't use their primer.
I've also got quite a few colours mixed up by the Dulux shop and it seems good too.
Diamond Eggshell is I think their toughest one.
I think the kitchen bloke might be, being a little unfair. As mentioned above it takes a good while to fully cure. Our kitchen seems fairly good for fairly long.
I think it's ok. It is maybe overpriced and you can get something as good for cheaper but I think F&B put a lot of the legwork in, in terms of developing colours and ranges and so will naturally cost a bit more. Other brands simply copy them.
I'm a cheapskate though so will always use something cheaper if I can 😊
I've always had good matches from Johnstones when I take the F&B colour chart in, get one small tin done as a test if you are really unsure
And knotting compound – does F&B not like that?
Knotting compound is just shellac - sticks to anything and anything will stick to it so any paint or primer can go over the top
The time a paint takes to dry/cure is only a concern really for the person painting it- your decision is really whether the paint / finish is what you want to live with once its painted and dried / cured. Someone else's convenience isn't really the end result that matters months or years from now
Theres more to the paints like F&B than the colour - getting another paint mixed to match the colour isnt going to result in paint that looks the same - theres quite marked differences in how different paints absorb and reflect light. Theres a sort of super-matt-ness to a lot of F&B paints that gives a very different result to other paints and gives a quite different ambience - I don't really like it in anything other than the palest colours as it seems to suck a lot of light out of the room - what seems like a light colour on a swatch is surprisingly dark once its one the wall. We live by the sea and quite like making the most of natural light - but that moodiness, if it's what you want, isn't going to come from just colour matching.
Farrow and Ball is awful ime. Little Green is brilliant. Dulux is very good and far cheaper.
we get Johnstones, and our place matches Farrow & Balls colours
Just this, every time.
I needed a small tin of paint to paint the surrounds on the picture frames and picked up some F&B as it was the easiest thing to grab. I was painting over raw wood and MDF.
I tried it on the raw wood, it didn't really stick or grab the surface. Fair enough, I Knew needed to undercoat it first. Same with MDF.
I used some Dulux undercoat and then the F&B. It still didn't go on nicely or particularly smoothly. It was okay but didn't feel nice to paint with.
When it dried, days later, it wasn't particularly even and needed another coat. Even after than it looked like it could do with a third.
The end result was after the whole weekend I had a picture frame that had the background painted a soft blue for £6.
The next weekend I got B&Q to knock up a £5 tester pot, slightly larger than the F&B tin, of the next colour I wanted and used that. One thin coat as undercoat and one normal coat to cover and the frame was finished.
It wasn't possible to tell the difference in quality or finish when looking at the two frames but one took a weekend to complete and one took a morning.
Thanks everybody. A nice mix of opinion meaning I can't really go wrong whatever I choose. However I've always had a secret tratesman-crush on Kayak23 and maccruiskeen so I might follow their advice :o)
However I’ve always had a secret tratesman-crush on Kayak23 and maccruiskeen
rushes off to create onlyfans account
What's the password?
What’s the password?
Lets see the colour of your money!
They don't do colour matching, but I'm a convert to Coat Paints
Really good range. Their testers are roughly A4 painted sheets that you can stick to the wall or whatever you're painting and see how it looks, then remove it and see how it looks in another spot in different light.
The paint itself is really easy to work with. One tin did our very large kitchen, going from white walls to blue with only one coat, and about a quarter of a tin left. Almost a year in and it's been very hardwearing. I'll be doing the living room shortly with something from their range.
F&B has a bit of a reputation with the painters I know although the experience seems to vary by colour. But as maccruiskeen points out, if you decide to try and colour match from elsewhere you are not guaranteed a seamless match because of the differing reflective qualities and where F&B scores is the apparent depth of the finish. And even then, if you do pay up for F&B your outcome will be determined by the preparation and undercoats and the degree of wear and tear and exposure the existing units have sustained.
F&B = Paint for peoples who first experience of any DIY or work around the house is based upon an instagram reel or pinterest board.
Prep, effort, skill and care > Paint Brand.
Farrow and Ball is shit! So is Johntones. Little Greene is way better, as is Albany from Brewers, or Dulux Trade.
Lets see the colour of your money!
Skimming Stone, Estate Eggshell
The F&B estate emulsion (the chalky one?) looks amazing when you put it on but VERY quickly marks if you touch it so absolutely rubbish if you have kids shoving their grubby mits on it all the time. The modern emulsion is loads better but has that shine to the finish, not like the chalky finish that attracted me to the estate emulsion.
I've only painted walls with it and despite all the above, I found it went on LOADS better than anything else I'd used previously. Would get it again...
We had one large wall done in F&B (Stiffkey Blue) estate emulsion last year. Our decorator did suggest getting a Dulux colour match Instead, firstly because F&B is so expensive and secondly because it marks so easily.
I wish we'd listened. It now looks shit.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0019rcb
Try BBC Sounds program Sliced Bread and the episode on paint.
Farrow & Ball is a bit like veganism,
When I worked at a commercial interior design company we used farrow & ball swatches for the mood boards, but Dulux colour matched the paint for.the actual work as it was far more durable - and cheaper.
I ve matched up f+b colours at local indie, really impressed. I used the high traffic paint as a base. Tbh some of the off whites I can't tell the difference, white tie, James something, lovely tints but v similar.
Farrow & Ball is a bit like veganism,
Why should you never ask someone if they are from Yorkshire/Are Vegan/Do Crossfit//Used Farrow and Ball Paint?
If they arent/don't/didn't, they'll be offended. If they are/do/did, they'll have already told you.
Just please do not use cheapo paints from DIY places - rubbish compared to trade paints.
Last time I tried to get a F&B colour matched the first place refused to do it claiming copyright issues. Crown paints next door no problem…
I did try doing a room in genuine Farrow and Ball once but the colour differences between tins of the same paint were terrible. Could have mixed them all together but for price you’d expect better. Also you only had to look at it and it marked.
Farrow & Ball is a bit like veganism,
Everyone who doesn't subscribe to it slags it off in unrelated discussions?
I’ve used Johnstons trade colour matched to F&B for years, Brewers are apparently licensed to do this and use the proper codes. Much prefer the consistency and covering ability of Johnston’s, just much easier to work with in general.
Ime, if you want a really deep or rich colour eg Hague blue, you’re probably still better off looking at genuine F&B as the depth of colour for deeper tones is very good, you lose something here by colour matching. As has been said, it’s about how the finish reacts/changes to different light. But for most shades I’d go for a colour match every time.
Ime, if you want a really deep or rich colour eg Hague blue, you’re probably still better off looking at genuine F&B as the depth of colour for deeper tones is very good
Yep, even more so with 'dead flat' versions which are very nice and have them on a number of walls.
My wife worked in interiors for years so I have had the 'pleasure' of working with many brands. F&B Eggshell is the one paint that I'd rather not work with again. What we do have painted in it has been very hard wearing, but the drying time was well over a week. We did use a posh emulsion (name of which escapes me) for a wall in my eldest daughter's room which was very poor, thing, bubbly and impossible to remove marks from (the F&B emulsion is fine but overpriced, we tend to colour match the B&Q (Valspar??P stuff these days).
During one of the lockdowns we done our upstairs / downstairs hallways and Stairway with Estate Emulsion. The shear amount of marks and stains on it now after only a couple of years is very disappointing.
It looked very good when done, but really needs done again.
The cynic in me makes me think it was by design - seemingly on Facebook groups there seems to be a lot of people who like redoing their room decor to follow all the current trends; why sell a tin of paint every 10 years when you can sell one every 3 years...
My local builders merchants mix F&B colours in whatever their trade paint brand is, much cheaper and harder wearing. If you want an exact(as it can be) colour match and finish to existing F&B, just get the smallest F&B can available.
Everyone who doesn’t subscribe to it slags it off in unrelated discussions?
To quote the (not dead), great Roy Walker
"it's good, but it's not right"
The wife demanded we use F&B for a white wall in our bedroom, I decided there was no way I was spending that much on paint for 2 coats so I used the bog standard Johnson's Matt white paint in the huge tub. When I went to put the F&B top coat on I couldn't tell the difference at all, so much so I'm not even sure if some bits were painted. So in short, expensive paint was no difference to the massive tubs of cheap paint.
Well, the fact I've got 28 doors and drawers already painted and half a big tin of Skimming Stone left over, and no major horror stories reported I'm sticking with the F&B.
I've been and bought a tin of their primer/undercoat, so next thing I'll find the original painter didn't use that and the new stuff will look different anyway.
Johnstones Aqua guard is currently considered a top quality satin water based paint and can be mixed to any colour, I can confirm it's excellent to use, Also Benjamin Moore scuff x , but that's blimmin expensive. To be fair there's a lot of choice, and most are better than estate eggshell.
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Get this guy to sort your colours out:-)
