Disclosure: For this post I received gifted product from Sherwin-Williams. All opinions are my own and always will be! Thanks for supporting content that keeps Jojotastic going.
Let’s be real here for a sec: selecting a shade of white paint for our house is one of the most stressful decisions I’ve made! We have white upper cabinets in the kitchen, so I wanted to get it right. In my opinion, nothing is worse than shades of a color that don’t match. I’m totally the person who will wear all black, but be grumpy that my shades of black aren’t the same. I know, I know… so delicate. Anyways, let’s dig into some tips I’ve learned from Sherwin-Williams about how to choose white paint!
My Best Tips to Help You Choose the Right Shade of White Paint
You’re probably wondering why I was so stressed out about picking a shade of white paint… First of all, painting a room isn’t exactly a small undertaking. When your home is 110 years old, there’s a lot of prep work to be done to ensure my walls are smooth, cracks are fixed, etc. I’m also the least patient person in the WORLD and hate doing prep work. So that means I usually avoid painting whenever possible. Second, I tend to overthink things because I know that later I won’t have the energy to change it if I am unhappy. And third, our home can be really dark in the winter because we live in Seattle.
They aren’t all the same.
I know at a glance that the swatches on a fandeck all look the same… but trust me, not all shades of white are created equal! Pay attention to the undertones because some shades of white can skew very cool, yellowish, or even warmer. Sometimes the easiest way to tell the undertones is to place the swatches on a sheet of plain printer paper.
Get small swatches at your local Sherwin-Williams store.
I always start by visiting my local store and grabbing 5-8 options of small swatches. Then, I bring them home and do a first pass of selections. Usually this means that I hold the swatches up and narrow down my options. In the case of the kitchen, I put them next to the cabinets at different angles to make sure the right undertone was present.
Order large swatches.
Part of why I love working with Sherwin-Williams is because I can get large color samples. Each swatch is the size of a piece of paper. The back peels off and you can place it anywhere you need! I also love to order multiples of the same color so I can see it in different places.
View the swatches at different angles and different times of day.
If you take just one tip from the post… please let it be this one! The time of day and angle of light change a paint color dramatically. Sometimes you’ll see undertones you didn’t even realize were there!
So which did I choose?
Ultimately, I chose Pure White SW 7005 from Sherwin-Williams in the Emerald Interior paint. It was the best match with our cabinets and also really brightened up the space! We re-painted the dining room to match and it looks soooo good. Way brighter and more cheerful. I’m excited to see how it helps come wintertime, too.
What other tips do you have when it comes to selecting white paint? I’d love to know!
