How do you perfectly match a paint color?

[Brian Henderson]

My wife wants me to put up shelves in the bedroom, but she wants them to be the exact same shade as the walls are. So I spent time down at Lowes trying to find paint cards that would match and came up empty. We didn't paint the walls and we have none of the original paint color in a can. I asked the guy at Lowes and he had no idea. He says find a card because they need something they can scan to tell the machine what color to make.

Any ideas? I'm not going to paint the whole room so I can put up a couple of shelves.

[Bruce Page]

Any ideas?

Unless you can find a piece of painted baseboard, outlet/switch cover etc, that you can have scanned you could try to talk her into a contrasting color.
I have never had any luck trying to color match using the cards. Even when I thought the match was perfect I could always see a difference.

[Tom M King]

Home Depot does a pretty good job, most of the time. I'm not sure if the machine they use is a spectrometer, as I'm sure the people running it don't know, but I've had better luck there than even the pro paint stores. In any case, their machine takes the guesswork out of it for their employees.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

I just peeled a piece of the drywall facing (the paper part that is painted) off and took it to HD to run through the spectrometer, and they made a perfect match. I used the new paint to cover where I pulled the sample from after a little spackling.

[Jim Becker]

I just peeled a piece of the drywall facing (the paper part that is painted) off and took it to HD to run through the spectrometer, and they made a perfect match. I used the new paint to cover where I pulled the sample from after a little spackling.

This is exactly what I was going to suggest...steal a sample directly from the wall in a place that a minor spackle repair will "just disappear". Four short strokes of a utility knife to cut a 1-2" square and peel it away with the tip of the knife to start. I've done this more than once.

[Brian Henderson]

Unless you can find a piece of painted baseboard, outlet/switch cover etc, that you can have scanned you could try to talk her into a contrasting color.
I have never had any luck trying to color match using the cards. Even when I thought the match was perfect I could always see a difference.

The problem is, I don't. I tried taking a picture of the color and it doesn't help. It's never the same on the phone as it is in person.

[Brian Henderson]

Home Depot does a pretty good job, most of the time. I'm not sure if the machine they use is a spectrometer, as I'm sure the people running it don't know, but I've had better luck there than even the pro paint stores. In any case, their machine takes the guesswork out of it for their employees.

Except I don't have a wall I can drag in there. All of the molding is a different color. All of the fixture covers are a different color. That's why I've been trying to match the color with something they can scan because I can't think of a better way of getting a sample down there.

[Stephen Tashiro]

Except I don't have a wall I can drag in there. All of the molding is a different color. All of the fixture covers are a different color. That's why I've been trying to match the color with something they can scan because I can't think of a better way of getting a sample down there.

Get a set of artist's acrylic paints (and if needed, an artist) and experiment with mixing colors and painting them on thin strips of wood (like paint mixing sticks) till you get a match. Then have that sample scanned at the paint store.

[Jim Becker]

Except I don't have a wall I can drag in there. .

Malcolm and I mentioned a very easy way to "take a small part of the wall with you" up above in posts 4 & 5

[Dan Friedrichs]

This problem has always made me think there should be a way to rent/borrow a portable paint scanner thing...they don't look expensive/complicated. Why isn't that a thing?

(But, like Jim and Malcolm suggest, I've cut a few pieces of drywall facing to bring into the store)

[Yonak Hawkins]

Maybe there's a place behind an electrical cover, a piece of removable molding or some other place that's accessible. What about behind a window treatment bracket or a picture or piece of furniture ?

[Stephen Tashiro]

This problem has always made me think there should be a way to rent/borrow a portable paint scanner thing...they don't look expensive/complicated. Why isn't that a thing?

Maybe it is. https://www.amazon.com/Color-Muse-co...oloro+analyzer

[Curt Harms]

Maybe there's a place behind an electrical cover, a piece of removable molding or some other place that's accessible. What about behind a window treatment bracket or a picture or piece of furniture ?

Behind a piece of furniture just above the baseboard? That'd work for me, and it wouldn't be sun faded, unless you wanted sun faded.

[Dan Friedrichs]

Maybe it is. https://www.amazon.com/Color-Muse-co...oloro+analyzer

Now that's cool

[Brian Henderson]

Yeah, I know that's ultimately what I'll have to do because there is no easy way to get it done. I want the color to match what's on the walls right now, so if it's sun faded, then it needs to be sun faded. I was just hoping for a better way, this is really something the paint industry needs to work on.