How to Match Interior Paint in an Existing Home

Wash your walls with soap and water. This is especially important if the walls have not been painted for a long period of time. The dirtier the wall, the darker the paint color will be so it is important to have a clean wall to have an accurate matching of color.

Go to a paint store and look at paint sample colors. Take several samples home that match or appear similar to your paint color. Get samples from each brand as the colors will not be the same.

Hold the paint samples to the wall during a sunny part of the day and see if the paint color matches the paint sample. You may also try doing this on other parts of the day to see if there are inconsistencies.

Take the matching sample to the paint store. It is best to choose a paint color with a slightly darker shade than what you are trying to match. Along with this purchase, buy a quart of plain white paint.

Paint a small area of the wall with the new paint. Remember that flat paint dries darker, so at first the wet paint may appear perfect.

Mix a teaspoon of the colored paint and a teaspoon of the plain white paint into a paper cup. Remember to rinse the teaspoon thoroughly before dipping it in either paint can.

Paint this new shade on a small portion of the wall. It will take 20 minutes for the paint to dry. To make this process faster, use a blow-dryer on the area that is newly painted.

Repeat this process until you find a perfectly matching color of paint. Keep track of the exact proportions of tinted and white paints used to achieve it, so the paint store can duplicate the formula.