Make Perfect Spot Color Match

Dear James: We are readying our house to sell, so we have to fix all the small damaged spots on the walls. What is the best way to match the paint color on them?—Maria T.

Dear Maria: It can be maddening, if not impossible, to get an absolutely perfect color and texture match. Relax a bit and accept the fact that you will never get a perfect match. Although the repaired spot may be very apparent to you, a reasonably good match will not be noticed by others.

If you have not done it yet, wash all the walls in the room with soap and water. You will probably be surprised how much different cleaned walls look, and this is the color you want to try to match. A thorough cleaning can brighten the color several shades.

With the walls cleaned, try painting the spots again. If they still stand out, it may be either that the paint is not a match or that the surface texture is significantly different than the rest of the wall. Most likely, it is a little of both problems, which you will have to correct.

Take a few small paint shavings from the wall to a reputable paint store. You can use a utility knife to obtain them. Experienced paint store employees should be able to get a pretty good match from a sample. Ask them to lean toward the darker side. You can always add some white paint to lighten a color, but you cannot easily darken paint to a shade you need.

Fill in the surface of the patches you made with repair compound. A common mistake is sanding the spot too smooth with fine sandpaper. This results in a surface texture much smoother than the painted walls around it. Leave a little texture to the surface of the patched spots.

Using a brush to test the color, paint a spot. Give it an hour or more to dry before inspecting the quality of the match. Since it is brushed on, it will look different, but you can still get an idea of how well the color matches.

It will probably be a little dark, so mix a teaspoon of white paint with a tablespoon of tinted paint and paint the spot again. Measure carefully and keep track of how much white paint you are adding to get the match you like. Mix the paint thoroughly.

Once you get an acceptable color match using the brush, paint a spot with the paint mixture using a short roller. This will give a finished surface texture similar to the rest of the walls in the room. When it dries, have some other family members try to find the spot or spots you repaired.

If the color still seems to be off just a little, mix up some more tinted and white paint to the ratio you used, but adjust it slightly lighter or darker as needed. Brush it on again and let it thoroughly dry. This should result in a match that even you will have trouble finding weeks from now.