Home: What's your favorite white or off-white paint?

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There are endless choices of “whites” and “off-whites”. Depending on the lighting, the same paint can look very different. The slightest tint can turn what looked like a white on the sample chip to a room full of a color! In the past when we thought we had chosen white, we’ve ended up with both pink and yellow rooms.:o We now buy several samples first.

Do you have a favorite color of “white” or “off-white” for your home’s wall? And if you don’t mind, please share if it’s southern or northern exposure and how much light is in the rooms.

Thanks!
 
We do rentals. In the past, we’ve done straight-out-of-the-bucket white so that everything’s standard. Oops, I didn’t realize they had “antique white” and “high hide white.” And now we realize how yellow the antique white really was. Let’s go ahead and go with the “high hide white” from here on out, because it’s so fresh and clean…

Then, we found out that even within the same brand, what’s labeled as out-of-the-bucket “high hide white” wasn’t anywhere near the same color from one line to another line. And every two or three years, they totally drop some lines and create new lines… and if I’m slow in noticing that they’re not restocking the line I’ve been buying, I might end up in a situation where I’ve got a house halfway painted in one color… and can’t get enough to finish the job.

The current line of paint at Lowe’s, Valspar Ultra 2000 in those 5-gallon buckets, is much whiter and crisper than the same default high-hide-white in the Valspar 2000 line, which is actually kind of gray in comparison. It also drips a lot less. Too bad I’m not sure whether I’m buying anymore paint from Lowes, since I want my paint line to be reliably available for more than a couple of years.

This picture is a west-facing wall, with only natural light coming in from the west and south. You can see how I started with the Valspar 2000, and had to completely re-do it with the Valspar Ultra 2000. (This is a renovation where we’ve ripped out the kitchen and are putting it back in.)

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gardenswithkids said:
There are endless choices of “whites” and “off-whites”. Depending on the lighting, the same paint can look very different. The slightest tint can turn what looked like a white on the sample chip to a room full of a color! In the past when we thought we had chosen white, we’ve ended up with both pink and yellow rooms.:o We now buy several samples first.

Do you have a favorite color of “white” or “off-white” for your home’s wall? And if you don’t mind, please share if it’s southern or northern exposure and how much light is in the rooms.

Thanks!
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My absolute favorite is Dunn Edward’s Swiss Coffee. It is more of a creamy white and looks great on trim.
 
You don’t have to go with creams and ecrus, you can go with shades of light gray and grayish blues, as well. Gray is a modern color choice that goes well with any décor.
 
Xantippe said:
That’s very pink on my screen.
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I really isn’t in “real life” though. It’s very creamy looking. Hard to describe. Right now, the ceiling and the walls in my living room have two different looking tints to them (mid-morning sun, southern windows): the ceiling looks more true white and the walls look off-white. I have dark blue trim next to them.
 
bluerose said:
I really isn’t in “real life” though. It’s very creamy looking. Hard to describe. Right now, the ceiling and the walls in my living room have two different looking tints to them (mid-morning sun, southern windows): the ceiling looks more true white and the walls look off-white. I have dark blue trim next to them.
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I’m not familiar with that specific tone, but the color always looks lighter when it is on the wall compared to the sample.
 
We have an 1895 Victorian Home that we did and painted over all the already-painted-5x-trim (we hated to do it again, believe me!) in the house with Valspar Medallion Wedding Cake. It is a pretty, just-off-white color that goes well with the light grey in the main living space as well as the warmer tones of our upper floor.
 
We either have used eggshell white or a more beige white. But we are high gloss types.

Ps
You win most random thread of the day…😃
 
gardenswithkids said:
There are endless choices of “whites” and “off-whites”. Depending on the lighting, the same paint can look very different. The slightest tint can turn what looked like a white on the sample chip to a room full of a color! In the past when we thought we had chosen white, we’ve ended up with both pink and yellow rooms.:o We now buy several samples first.

Do you have a favorite color of “white” or “off-white” for your home’s wall? And if you don’t mind, please share if it’s southern or northern exposure and how much light is in the rooms.

Thanks!
Click to expand...
I never in my life thought I’d have a favorite off-white paint color. But I do. I like one called “Silver Feather.” I can’t remember the manufacturer, if it’s Behn or Olympic. It’s an off-white with a very slight gray tint and very slight silvery sheen to it. Almost imperceptible.
 
gardenswithkids said:
There are endless choices of “whites” and “off-whites”. Depending on the lighting, the same paint can look very different. The slightest tint can turn what looked like a white on the sample chip to a room full of a color! In the past when we thought we had chosen white, we’ve ended up with both pink and yellow rooms.:o We now buy several samples first.

Do you have a favorite color of “white” or “off-white” for your home’s wall? And if you don’t mind, please share if it’s southern or northern exposure and how much light is in the rooms.

Thanks!
Click to expand...
Oh, foo… I thought the thread was “What’s your favorite white or off-white PLANT?”

I was going to respond with Calla Lilies.
 
on_the_hill said:
I never in my life thought I’d have a favorite off-white paint color. But I do. I like one called “Silver Feather.” I can’t remember the manufacturer, if it’s Behn or Olympic. It’s an off-white with a very slight gray tint and very slight silvery sheen to it. Almost imperceptible.
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We painted our kitchen a shade of light grey called “snowfield.” It’s on the south side of our house, but we have only two small windows, so the room is not well sunlight. But such a light shade keeps the room from being dark, while not having to paint it bright white.
 
I am SO PICKY about white. We painted all the wood work in our house 3 years ago and I took forever to settle on the color white. I chose Benjamin Moore’s Aura paint, in Satin, and we used Bavarian Cream. I found this pic online of a room’s trim in Bavarian Cream. I like it because its a SOFT WHITE. I want the wood trim to look SOFT. It does not matter to me that the white windows of our replacement windows in SLIGHTLY different. Colder. I want a warmer, softer room, not colder and harder.

A room’s trim done in Bavarian Cream is here:


Actually I am extremely picky about ALL COLORS. I love to find someone as picky as me. But that is extremely rare.😃 We used Benjamin Moore’s Color Story colors in Aura Flat throughout the entire house. I love these colors because they are more complex, using several pigments and no black, so it reflects light well. They are “Full spectrum” colors and all the walls look great in all different light. And the painted walls look like velvet. The great color mixes, the excellent coverage, and the flatness give it that velvet look, and when you look at the wall it seems like you are looking into a distance. You have to find a Ben Moore store that has the Color Story color chips, and if not, many will at least have the little booklet of all the chips to look at for the color story colors (where I used to live, they had both. Then we moved here and my local store had not heard of it, but they ordered the book. The Color Story booklet and chips use uses real painted-on chips.)

Here is an article on Color Story colors: bloggingpainters.com/offering-your-customers-a-full-spectrum-of-color-choices/

In my opinion, this is the best in American paint! You can do better by spending quite a bit more (however, you use less paint) on Fine Paints of Europe. This was a discovery for me AFTER we painted the house and it probably was a great grace I did not know if it at the time becase they are expensive. My husband is building a new entry room I had hoped to do in this European oil-based paint, however, now that I am seeing the costs of creating a room, I am going to price it first before I decide to go ahead with that. Because the Ben Moore Color Story colors are GREAT. But I will at least do the new front door in that amazing Hollandlac Brilliant, in order to, Lordwilling, achieve something akin to this:





They have EVERY SINGLE Color imaginable. I want something similar to this ideal in this link, only slightly darker: (the image turned way too big for this thread when I tried it): marshalljohnsonpainting.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/IMG_1872-Version-4.jpg

but not quite as dark as this color, which I like too:

and also this color (the image turned way too big for this thread when I tried it): marshalljohnsonpainting.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/IMG_1872-Version-4.jpg

(My husband likes what I pick!)
 
White Dove by Benjamin Moore is what we used as our ceiling and trim color throughout our house when we did a gut remodel 3 years ago. My SIL just recently used it as their exterior house color and interior trim color. It is a beautiful white (not stark or cold and not too yellow/warm, either).

If you go to Houzz.com you can search it and see lots of pics.
 
slh3016 said:
White Dove by Benjamin Moore is what we used as our ceiling and trim color throughout our house when we did a gut remodel 3 years ago. My SIL just recently used it as their exterior house color and interior trim color. It is a beautiful white (not stark or cold and not too yellow/warm, either).

If you go to Houzz.com you can search it and see lots of pics.
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Yes! We have White Dove by Benjamin Moore. The Silver Feather I mentioned earlier is Olympic.
 
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