DIY is a great way to update your home and give rooms a fresh lease of life. Painting is a huge part of the DIY that we do at home.
While it may seem simple to apply a coat or two of paint to the walls, if you want a more professional finish, you have to think about matching existing colors. This particularly applies to touching up the trim in your freshly decorated rooms.
Touching up the white paint of your trim Might seem like the easiest part of redecorating. Unfortunately, white paint can be the most difficult to match because of the many subtle shades.
In this guide, we will look at how you can accurately match white trim paint. This can help avoid having to repaint all the trim in a room to keep things looking professional and high quality.
Matching white trim paint is one of the most difficult but important parts of redecorating a room.
However, it is possible to match white trim paint accurately and easily with the right tools and expertise. This can include using professionals and color-reading machines.
How To Match White Trim Paint?
Matching white paint to white paint should be the most simple process in the world. Unfortunately, there are hundreds of different shades of white made by every paint manufacturer.
Each of those shades is slightly different depending on which manufacturer makes it.
This might sound completely overwhelming, but thankfully, there are a couple of ways that you can accurately match the existing paint on your trim to keep a job small and simple.
Use Professionals
Most hardware stores offer a service that mixes paint to any shade of your choice. Although white is one of the most difficult colors to do this with, it is possible to get accurate results with this method.
If you are going to use a professional paint mixing service, you will need to provide a sample of the color that you want to give the machine something to work from.
It might be tempting to take a photo of the trim that you want to touch up.However, this is unli kely to give you the results that you are looking for.
The color of the paint in the photo will vary depending on the settings on your phone and lighting. There are two ways that provide accurate results with professional paint mixing.
You can remove a piece of the trim that you are looking to touch up. It is best to do this in an inconspicuous area such as behind a door. You can then take this piece of trim to the hardware store.
They can then use this as a reference to create the desired color. If you aren’t confident cutting a piece of your trim off without causing significant damage, you can chip a piece of the paintwork off instead.
Taking a chip of paint off the wood is a great way to bring a small sample of the paint you need to match to the store. This is a perfect option because you aren’t causing significant damage to the trim.
It can be difficult to get the paint to match exactly, but with a sample from the trim that you are painting, you are likely to get much closer.
Use A ColorReader
If you don’t want to cause further damage to the trim that you want to paint, you can invest in a device called ColorReader. This is a small device that can tell you the exact shade of paint that you are looking for.
With the ColorReader, all you need to do is hold the device against the trim so that it can analyze the paint. Once it has finished analyzing, the ColorReader can give you an accurate name and product number for the paint that has been used.
If the paint on the trim has been on there for an especially long time, it is possible that the paint will have been discontinued. However, the ColorReader will still be able to provide the details of the discontinued product.
You can take this information to your local hardware or paint store and they will be able to provide you with similar colors to match the trim.
Is It Possible To Match White Trim Paint By Eye?
You might be wondering if it is possible to match white trim paint by eye. The short answer to this question is, no. As we have mentioned above, white might seem like a super simple color to match, but it is deceptive.
There are so many different shades of white that have extremely subtle differences that it is almost impossible to match by eye.
You might be able to get close to the right shade with this method, but it will never be exact. This can lead to an undesirable finish, especially in a different light.
Does The Finish Make A Significant Difference?
Another thing that needs to be considered when touching up the trim is the finish of the paint. Matching the shade of white is one thing, but if the finish of the paint is different from the current trim, you will end up having to repaint everything.
This would negate the time you spent trying to match the paint. Make sure that you clean the trim with sugar soap before taking a sample to the hardware store so that you can get the most accurate paint possible.
Are Some Paint Matching Stores Better Than Others?
As with everything, there are going to be some stores that offer higher quality paint matching services than others. The store that is best for you will mostly depend on what is available in your area.
However, as a general rule, hardware stores that have dedicated paint sections or actual paint stores are going to provide a better service than general hardware stores.
Going to a store that is dedicated to providing high-quality paint will save you a lot of time in repeat mixes.
Summary
Matching white trim paint is a harder task than it might appear to be. The subtle differences between shades of white can be almost undetectable to the naked eye at first, but over time, you will begin to notice patchy paintwork.
Generally, you will need to take a sample of the paint you are touching up to a hardware or paint store to get an accurate match. Thanks for reading!
Leave a comment