Interiors with Sarah Jane Nielsen, owner and director of Sarah Jane Nielsen Limited, at Staveley.

Further to our previous column discussing paint colours and the selection there of, I was enjoying an insightful conversation into paint colours with my optician this week. He came up with a great scenario which would make us all question our eye sight, never mind colour judgement.

At home, he and his wife had confidently chosen their paint colours from good old Farrow and Ball. The rooms they were painting were of a similar size, with a similar amount of daylight into them, so they had considered their choice at length and loved their colour, Elephant’s Breath.

The decorator progressed with one room and on completion all were happy with the result. The decorator moved on to the second room. Whilst merrily continuing around the walls he stopped abruptly as the colour on the first coat was looking positively ‘grunge,’ nothing like next door. He was horrified and waited for the client to come home to discuss. On arriving at home there was no question the desired colour was unacceptably ‘grunge.’ Whilst debating the next move, they really had little choice but to continue with due caution as the walls would have to be uniform. This may give you a clue as to what had happened? Two rooms of the same description, the difference being that one had a base coat of near white and the other one painted previously in mustard yellow. So, no surprise, when a colour is seen next to another its shading varies, sometimes quite dramatically.

But not only that, Alan, the eye expert, explained that the strongest colour in your vision is yellow (don’t ask me too much more on the scientific element) therefore the strength of the yellow had unbalanced the Elephant’s Breath immeasurably. Not a huge surprise really. The fascinating bit was that not until the very last visual of the mustard base had been covered over was the true colour was revealed. You can imagine the decorators joy when, at last he saw the colour that matched next door and was no longer concerned about his eye sight or payment for his work.

Top tip - in order to produce the colour indicated on the swatch or tin (as long as it has actually come from said tin) one must start with a neutral base layer. We would usually assume to skim all walls throughout a job before ANY colour is applied.