Buying Paint

Once our new windows were installed it became obvious that our back door needed attention.

Twelve years ago I painted it the blue/green colour we had decided for the shutters, but all that time on the western side of the house had faded and worn the paint.

I decided that it would tie in nicely if the door was the same colour as the new windows, a pebble grey colour that to our eyes has a greenish tint. The colour is one of the few colours approved by Bâtiments de France for this area, and we chose it because we had to choose something. We noted down the colour number on the small tin of paint the window installers had bought along (7032) and when the opportunity arose visited some hardware shops in Chambray les Tours.

Although it's a locally approved colour, it's not one that features as a colour in any paint range. Leroy Merlin could mix 7032, but didn't have any base. Castorama did have base so we had them make up a 2.5 litre tin. The paint mixing lady showed us the result (that didn't look like anything we remembered) and asked if that was right. We supposed it was, and on Saturday I started painting.

It's a perfect match - to the extent that where I dribbled some of our paint on the pre-painted windows I was able to invisibly blend it on.

I'm quite pleased.