Your renovation deserves a carefully considered colour palette that suits your home and personal style. But how practical is it for a spray painter to use lots of different colours? What are the options and limitations? This article explains everything.
What is the difference between an accent colour and a colour change?
Explore your colour options and our complete approach to professional wall spray painting.
The main difference between an accent colour and what we call a colour change is the application method. We apply an accent colour with a roller, whereas a colour change involves spraying. Here is how they differ in practice.
Accent colour
Suppose you want all your walls and ceilings sprayed in the same colour, but would like one wall in a different shade, for example in the living room. We treat that as an accent colour. In practice, this area is too small to spray efficiently, so we apply the paint professionally with a roller. Our secret is that we always paint the coloured walls before spraying everything else. You might wonder why, but there is a good reason.
By painting the coloured walls first and letting them dry, we can soon apply masking tape in a straight line on the freshly painted surface. Taping the accent colour before spraying creates a crisp edge where it meets the surrounding walls and ceilings. An accent wall can be painted first thing in the morning, before we start the rest of the work.
Colour change
A colour change can be carried out entirely by spraying. Unlike an accent wall, however, it cannot be completed in a single day. In practice, a colour change means spraying all the walls in one colour and the ceilings in a different shade, usually white. We allow an extra day for this: we spray the walls on the first working day, then return to spray the ceilings. The walls are fully masked, with tape carefully applied along the corners to create a crisp transition between the two colours.
Which colours can you mix?
There are many paint colours available from many different brands. We can mix most of them, although there are some exceptions. These are not always easy to identify in advance. Some brands use colour names rather than codes and change their colours each year. A year may then be added to the colour name, which can cause confusion. In some cases, these colours cannot be mixed, and we recommend looking for a similar shade from another brand.
Whichever colour or brand you choose, we always have the colour mixed in the paints we work with. For large spray-painted areas, we use Veveo paint. For smaller accent walls, we use high-quality SPS wall paint.
Could there be a colour difference?
Here is what that means. Brands such as Farrow & Ball offer beautiful colours. Because the brand has its own paint range and colour formulations, matching these shades in a different paint requires them to be analysed and reproduced by a colour laboratory.
In almost all cases, any difference from the original colour is barely noticeable. However, we cannot guarantee that the two will look identical when placed side by side. This is often due to a difference in sheen rather than the colour itself. Imagine your door frames are painted in high-gloss RAL 9010, while the adjacent wall is sprayed with matt paint in the same RAL 9010 shade. They may appear different because one surface reflects more light than the other.
Want to know more or need advice?
Get in touch. We would be happy to discuss the options for your project. If you are unsure about anything, ask us and we will help you work through it.
