White Paint Colors for Interior

2 years ago

Hello, choosing a white paint for my interior has proven to be very difficult. I am doing a whole home renovation so currently have a blank slate- there are certain undertones that I realize will be much more prominent once I have furniture and decor, so it's making it challenging to decide. They all look pretty to me with a clean unfurnished home. I have a 1950's rancher, open concept. There is a lot of natural light (south facing) in main area of home. The hallways and bedrooms not as much natural light. The colors I've swatched so far are 1)BM white dove 2) BM white cloud 3) BM Steam af-15 4) BM Swiss Coffee 5) SW Alabaster 6) SW Pure White. The pure white is too stark to me and Alabaster reads very green on my walls. I really want to love White Dove, but I'm seeing a lot of pink in it for some reason and I'm not sure why. Cloud white looks pretty, but worried it may be too yellow once I have entire house painted. Steam looks kind of cold to me, even though description does say it's warm. We have a very transitional/modern home style, there will be a lot of polished concrete mixed with white oak (planning to keep it as natural and organic looking as possible), i was really thinking we need some warmth with the white color we choose. I am being told NOT to mess with reducing colors by 25-50% because repainting in the future could be an issue. I realize this was a rant and I probably sounds crazy...picking a white paint can do that to you apparently lol. Anyone have any suggestions? How about experience with White Dove or Steam from Benjamin Moore? Does white dove read pink on walls or did I purchase a dud sample? Help!

Featured Answer

jo mu

2 years ago

I had the same pink sample issue but with a sherwin williams color greek villa I think it was sooo pink they didnt even have paint samples so they had give me a quart you would think its accurate. To this day im not sure if something went wrong or if its a little pink lol. I went back to the store and they couldn't figure it out but agreed it did look pinker than the color chip

I used bm Swiss coffee in my bathroom it looks a little green next to the cooler tile i dont love that but on the rest of the walls that aren't next to tile they look nice to me I cant see the green

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Comments (8)

jo mu
2 years ago
Yeah reducing doesnt actually work you just end up with a different color. Just how color works its sort of impossible especially with whites

Also fyi sample paints of whites are inaccurate the little color chip you get at the store is going to be more accurate. I had a lot of issues with this even in 1 quart.
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jo mu
2 years ago
Maybe try samplelize to get an accurate sampling
Amy Mannon
Original Author
2 years ago
I was curious about samplize! Of course all the colors i wanted to try were sold out lol. Your walls look pretty!
jo mu
2 years ago
What color are your kitchen cabinets?

Honestly as long as your trim is the same color as the white walls you won't notice the undertones as much

Basically you can only see white colors true color when compared to another white

I unfortunately wasn't painting my doors or trim and didn't realize this till after and went a little crazy lol between the trim and ceiling color and inaccurate white paint samples I repainted a ton and finally ended up mixing 2 paints to get a white im happy with

1 to 1 chantilly lace bm with simply white bm
jo mu
2 years ago
And thank you! Funny enough that paint I picked on a whim I had heard swiss coffee is a good neutral off white i didn't even think about how it could clash with the other elements
jo mu
2 years ago
Also good to look up the paints lrv you might want to stick to a certain level bm Swiss coffee is less white so lower lrv than sw pure white
Amy Mannon
Original Author
2 years ago
Raw oak at that moment. I feel like we are going a little backwards bc we're picking paint color before we have island, tile, cabinet or floor stain picked out. We gutted our whole house and my husband is doing all the work himself (so no builder or contractor help lol). I think my Island will end up some sort of natural white oak (trying to keep it as natural as possible with the rift sawn)..the cabinets on wall I've been leaning towards Farrow & Ball Pigeon this entire time, but now have fallen in love with the cabinet color in photo (for my laundry room) and don't want the pigeon on cabinets to clash? Gosh....husband about to kill me with my paint indecisiveness 😩