How to choose a paint colour…LRV and why its important

If you are anything like me, you will have spent lock down painting anything that moves but have you ever painted your home to discover that the paint looked lighter or darker than you expected?  That is because of LIGHT REFLECTIVE VALUE (LRV).

I’m going to try and keep it simple as if you’re anything like me, with not one scientific bone in your body, this can get tricky…

LRV refers to how light or dark a paint colour will look on a scale of 0 (black) to 100 (white), the higher the LRV number is, the lighter the colour is. The lower the LRV number, the darker the colour.

What does all this mean I hear you ask!!?? Well, this can HUGELY affect your room depending on how much NATURAL or ARTIFICIAL light your room gets. ANY colour will look lighter when hit with DIRECT natural or artificial light. The less light there is in your room the less light there will be to reflect, SO even if you pick a LIGHT colour with a HIGH LRV, if you don’t give it enough light to reflect, it simply won’t cut the mustard.

So, sometimes people pick a light paint colour thinking its high LRV will save their dark room and whilst it would look brighter than it would painted in a dark colour, you need LIGHT for the colour to come to life. WHY? Well, you are not seeing the colour on the walls, you are seeing the COLOUR of the LIGHT THAT’S REFLECTED OFF THE WALLS.

This is a rough guide to LRV colour scale which all paint tins should detail:

 0 – 10 DARK

10 – 20 MEDIUM DARK

20  - 40 MEDIUM

40 – 55 LIGHT MEDIUM

55 – 75 LIGHT

77 – 80 OFF WHITE

80+ WHITE

A light colour in a bright room will look lighter than the same light colour in a dark room as the light room has more light for the paint colour to play with. Choosing a light paint colour for a dark room will brighten it but it won’t save the day – you need ACTUAL LIGHT for the paint colour to play off and reflect.

We can see here how the colour changes as the amount and quality of LIGHT changes…

The long and short of choosing paint colour is that if you don’t have enough natural or artificial light, there is no colour that will work well for you.

 I hope this help with choosing your paint colour, if you find you need a little more help or require a colour consultation drop me a line or visit www.giraffeinteriors.com.

 Happy colour choosing!

Michelle x