Cream or soft yellow homes anyone?? SOS!

[ohairas]

Please help y'all!! We are getting ready to paint our home and I cannot for the life of me find a color. I want a soft cream with a hint of yellow... not too bright or lemony, not too beige...just dark enough to have good contrast with white.

You can see my house here with some swatches, none of them are doing it for me...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/85469550@N00/sets/72157604799491248/
and some virtuals I did here,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/85469550@N00/2452720692/in/set-72157600477998725/

If you have a cream house, please share a pic and the paint/color you used!! Thanks!
Nikki

 

[Sunny]

Nikki, our house is white so I can't help you directly. I looked at the swatches, though, and I agree - the swatches aren't doing it. In my opinion they're too peachy.

I've actually experimented a lot with digital color, since I'm a huge computer nerd and customize all my colors. I remember working on a blue-and-buff and blue-and-gold color theme back when I was into Master and Commander. Like you, I kept going for light cream or yellow, and I kept ending up with something that had peach in it, or maybe beige. What worked was to start instead with a true bright yellow - not gold - and simply decrease the tint. Way, way down, like to 5% or 10%. That gave a true creamy yellow. Decreasing the tint meant it wasn't bright, but starting with the true yellow kept out the orange and pink tints that other colors had.

I've had similar wacky results with other colors. Taking a nice chocolate brown and decreasing tint gives first orange, than true peach; I had to go to another color for a pale tan that wasn't beige. And greens are really weird. For the pretty seafoam green I'm currently using, I had to start with a bright lime color; kelly green turned chartreuse in lighter tints.

I hope "tint" is the word I want - I just mean like adding white to make it paler.

 

[The Shirt]

I believe it is Sherwin Williams who has an entire line of historical colors. You may find something in these. I believe they were based on original colors and have a nice "softness" to a lot of them. Otherwise - I use Benjamin Moore quite a bit for good color ranges.

Good luck.

 

[Paisley]

My house used to be that color, but it faded badly in the Colorado sun.

I think you need more of a pure, lemony yellow than you might imagine, rather than ivory.

 

[scotrace]

I hate network filters. Everything flickr returns an "access denied: Porn, nudity."

I hardly think you are posting house porn! lol

(Will look from home)

 

[Miss 1929]

Match some other object?

I can't remember which, but I know that one of the major paint companies with mix the paint to match anything you bring in to them, fabric, a poodle, whatever. so don't just look at paint chips, look around your house and closet and see what you can find that is the right color.
Also, ALWAYS get the little sample can and try some on your sunny side, and some on your shady side, or it's really hard to tell what you will end up with.

 

[BellyTank]

Buttermilk

... but a bit deeper

Buttermilk and a little Beeswax.

Avoid the lemon yellow.


B
T

 

[pgoat]

Not a house, but.....

I'd live in a house the colors of this car. Lemony fresh!

 

[Helen Troy]

I've actually experimented a lot with digital color, since I'm a huge computer nerd and customize all my colors. I remember working on a blue-and-buff and blue-and-gold color theme back when I was into Master and Commander
I've had similar wacky results with other colors. Taking a nice chocolate brown and decreasing tint gives first orange, than true peach; I had to go to another color for a pale tan that wasn't beige. And greens are really weird. For the pretty seafoam green I'm currently using, I had to start with a bright lime color; kelly green turned chartreuse in lighter tints.

I hope "tint" is the word I want - I just mean like adding white to make it paler.

Pigments are different than screen color, but the main principle you describe here is right. It looks to me like Nikkis swatches has
some black in them, and maybe some red. (Hard to tell on the screen.) If you want a bright yellow, choose one with lots of white and a little pure yellow, as Sunny said.

Maybe the NCS system can help you. It's a system for understanding color, based on how you experience it. (Not how pigments work.) A color is composed of a mixture of six ementary colors: Red, green, blue, yellow, black and white.

First, look at the four colours: Red, green, blue and yellow. Do you want a pure yellow? Or do you want to add some red?

Next, think about how clean, muted, "dirty" or colorstrong you want it. Do you want it muted/dirty? Add a some black. A strong, clean color? Don't add anything.(Doh.) Softer? Add white. You can off course add both white and black to the mixture.

If you want, dig out the childrens paint kit and exeriment a bit with color, following this guidelines. It will give you a better understanding of color and what you are looking for.

But color is difficoult: The climatic conditions, the natural colors in the landscape and the qualities of the natural light in your area will affect the way we experience the color. It can "change" completely from one place to another, and during the day depending on the light!

Also, the colors you mach it with has a lot to say. Pure white trimmings are not the most "difficoult" choise, but do you want it pure white? That can seem harsh and clinical, and colors we experience as pure white very seldom are. It need to be adjusted ever so soft softly to work with the other colours in your scheme.

Do you want a greyish, redish, bluish or greenish or yellowy white? The answer can "change" the yellow color, but off course that depends on how much white there will be on your house compared to the yellow.

I hope I did not confuse you now. (I probably did.) Colour is strange, fun and difficoult and I wish I could have stuied it for years. But it's not that difficoult:
Experiment a bit, trust your own eyes, and allways test the colurs in the enviroment it's going to be. (As you do, allready.)

Good luck!

 

[Joie DeVive]

First off, Ohairas, you have a beautiful house!

My house has a brick exterior, so I haven't had to face this challenge yet. However, when I had to pick interior colors, I had the best luck going down to Home Depot and raiding their Behr color cards. I pulled out anything that I thought looked close first, and then started weeding out the ones that weren't what I was after. I went home with about 6 cards, taped them to the wall and thought about them for a while.

Most of my house is off-white, but I think that shade is a little too white for your needs, but my kitchen color might be close the what you're after. You might want to look at Behr cards 370A and 380A. I used Pale Daffodil(370A-2) from 370A, but I think either Moon Mist(370A-1) from that same card, or Moonlit Yellow(380A-2) or Milkyway Galaxy(380A-1) from 380A might be worth a look.

Good luck and Happy Painting!

Joie

 

[Decodence]

I've got vintage color samples at home, I'll see if I have anything like that.

 

[Sunny]

Pigments are different than screen color, but the main principle you describe here is right. It looks to me like Nikkis swatches has
some black in them, and maybe some red. (Hard to tell on the screen.) If you want a bright yellow, choose one with lots of white and a little pure yellow, as Sunny said.

I was hoping someone else had better information. Thank you, Helen!