Colour Matching with Valspar Paint

So I’m kickstarting 2018 by finishing some of those DIY jobs that are half-done – you know, when you start something all excitedly and then run out of steam and it just gets left? For an eternity. Yeah, those kinds of DIYs.

We started renovating the Conservatory way back in 2016 by installing a new roof, we also sorted the plumbing, added electric and we even plastered and insulated the external walls.

A year later, I then painted the floor in a painted the floor to look like tiles and now another 6 months on from that, we’re finishing the rest of the room off. Starting with a splash of colour and trying out Valspar’s colour matching service. Does it really work?

Finally painting this room means no more raw-plaster coloured walls (hurrah!) and it also means actually giving this room a purpose rather than just being four walls.

I wrote about our plans for this room way back in this post and whilst those plans have changed slightly since then, I’m still planning on using it as an indoor/outdoor garden room filled with plants as a kind of summer snug – somewhere to chill out with a good book and garden view. Well, once all that rubbish in the garden has been cleared, at least!

The first job to finish in here is to give the plastered wall a much-needed coat of paint. It was the perfect opportunity to try and test out Valspar’s colour-matching service (exclusively sold in B&Q) which I had been intrigued about for quite some time.

If you don’t know what this is – in a nutshell, the Valspar paint range is so infinite that they can literally create any colour possible. Thanks to super awesome clever technology they can scan any colour and recreate it, as an exact match. So if you need to touch up some kitchen doors but don’t have the paint for it – well, you can bring the door in and they can create the exact paint for it – genius! No need to buy a bazillion tester pots or stand around comparing swatches to find the nearest match. Just a quick scan and it’s all done for you.

The Valspar colour matching also works for creating colours from other brands too. You all know how much I love the colour range F&B paint offers, but absolutely hate the price tag – well with Valspar you can get that perfect colour for a considerably lower price. It’s especially great if you’re on a budget!

I was really fortunate enough to be gifted some paint vouchers from the team at Valspar in order to put their paint to the test. How matching, was colour-matching? And does it really work? Well, I was about to find out.

First things first though – freshly plastered walls always need mist-coating even if they’ve been left to dry out for more than a year. I use a 50/50 mix of basic white emulsion (the cheapest one you can find works just fine!) and water. Once that’s dry I then go back over with a 70/30 mix of Emulsion to water. And once THAT is dry – you can then go over with the actual coloured paint.

If you forget to mist-coat new plaster, then any paint (Valspar or other paint range) won’t adhere properly and you risk it peeling right off. No one wants that. So always mist coat first!

So what colour have I gone for, you’re wondering? Well, you’ll be surprised to know that it is in fact NOT on the grey spectrum as I had always imagined, but PINK. Yep, you read that right, we’re going pink in the conservatory!

As much as I love grey (obviously!) it’s slightly taking over our house. We have a grey kitchen, a grey wall in the dining room, grey in the spare bedroom – hell, even our panelling in the bathroom is a blue-grey. It’s everywhere! I absolutely love pops of colour, so I wanted to go for something with more colour, something different, something that compliments grey and would also look great against the greenery of all the plants I’m planning to have in here. So I went for pink. A trendy, cool, grown-up kinda pink, one that doesn’t look like it belongs next to a crib in a baby’s room.

My initial thoughts upon opening the tub were very much “oh shit, have I made the wrong decision?” but once it started to go on the wall, I could totally see the sophisticated pink I had been after. The pink I had Valspar colour-matched to is called ‘Calamine’ from the F&B range.

It’s not a baby pink or a sugary sweet pink, but one with a hint of grey. It’s calming, cool toned and the exact grown-up version of pink I had been imagining.

Having never used any Valspar paint before, the thing that surprised me the most, was how far one coat went in regards to coverage. The tub I’m using is their Premium v700 blend which has a built-in primer and is also a bit more durable. I was not expecting the paint to anywhere near as richly pigmented with such amazing coverage! And if I had been a little more careful with the application I truly think one coat would have been enough to do the whole wall. I’ve never used any other emulsion paint quite like it and I was genuinely quite impressed.

The paint has a creamier consistency than actual F&B paint and from a 2.5L tub, I barely used a quarter of it for painting this wall. And as I say, I think I could have used even less if I had applied a little more carefully. I also went over the skirting board too, so the whole wall would be floor-to-ceiling pink.

And you can already see just how great this colour looks against the DIY painted floor! It complements the pink so well and if anything, makes the floor even more of a feature, which I freaking love and it totally deserves to stand out after the hours it took me to paint 😉

So the REAL question, is how matching was it with the actual F&B colour? Well, here’s a little comparison and of course you can make your own mind up for yourselves but I’m 100% certain it’s pretty much as exact as you can get.

Needless to say, I am really really impressed! If you have the fear of going colour-matching in case it’s wrong – then don’t be! I’ve been sharing the conservatory decorating over on Instagram (go follow me here!) and had so many messages from fellow Instagrammers who also said how much they love the Valspar colour-matching too. If you don’t want to commit to a full tub straight away then you can always get a sample made up first to check. But from my experience so far, it’s definitely been worth it!

So here’s a final quick look of the room with its new freshly painted pink wall. Of course, I’ll be doing a little more to this room still (pallet seating on the way!) but isn’t it amazing how quickly paint can transform a room?

I’d love to know if you’ve tried Valspar’s colour matching service out? And what you thought to it? Were you were as impressed as me? Or did it let you down? Let me know in the comments below!

*I was gifted Valspar’s paint to feature in this blog. All words and opinions are my own and I only recommend products I would genuinely buy myself.