In which we have the house painted.

The new house needed a paint job.  The whole thing.  So we spent a few days getting quotes from various painters for the work, and then we picked one to get started.

The painter wanted to buy our paint from either Lowes or Home Depot, so he suggested that we go to the store and get some paint samples to make sure that we liked the color.

I went to Lowes and bought a few little sample cans of paint:



We decided that we liked the lightest color, called Tagsale Linen.

So, I gave the painter the name and code for the color that I liked at Lowes.  He showed up and started painting, and we noticed a problem.  The color that he was painting all the walls did not match any of the sample colors that I had painted up on the walls throughout the house.

It was pink.

I didn't like the pink, so I got my paint sample back out and painted a patch next to the color that the painters were putting on all of the walls. 

The pink color at the top left is the Tagsale Linen that the painter brought.  The tan color at the bottom right is the Tagsale Linen sample that I bought.

After doing some research into the matter, we discovered that I bought my paint from a different Lowes store than the painter did.  You would think that all the Lowes would be mixing the same paint colors to match, but each branch manager is allowed to manually override the tolerances on their paint mixing equipment.  So even though Lowes wants you to believe that Tagsale Linen will be the same at every location, it can be very different.  (So be careful, other painters!)

The painters weren't happy with Lowes, or us, actually, but they color matched my sample paint and started over:

See the cut work with the correct color going up over the wrong color?

And finally, here is a shot of the dining room painted the correct way:



I think it looks great.