Home Depot is one of the best places to find products and services for upgrading or repairing your home. When you think about Do-It-Yourself home projects, painting your walls is likely very high on your list.
If so, you may be wondering if Home Depot can match paint so you can have the perfect color palette in your home. Here is what I discovered!
Does Home Depot Match Paint?
Yes, Home Depot can match paint to virtually any color and can also match paint from other stores and brands. Additionally, Home Depot can match paint from materials and items, including paint cans, paint can lids, chips of paint, pictures, drywall, wood, fabric, plastic, and metal.
To learn more about how to match paint at Home Depot, paint types, and how you can match paint from your smartphone, keep on reading!
How Does Home Depot Match Paint?
There are several methods used by the Home Depot paint department. The two most common ways to match paint are to bring in your old can of paint to the store or bring in a paint chip from your wall or other painted item.
With the cans of paint, sometimes the Home Depot paint department database will have the color formula already on file.
If so, the paint department associate simply types in the proper codes from the label on the can. This will also often work even if it’s a paint brand that Home Depot doesn’t sell themselves.
If there is no label, sometimes the inside of the paint can lid can be used as a paint chip. Or, there may be enough paint left over to paint onto a piece of wood or drywall and match from that after it dries.
What Does Home Depot Use To Read the Color?
Every Home Depot that sells paint has a computer that is tied to its national database of paint and color information. The paint sample or other item is placed on a sensor for a spectrophotometer which is a light meter for reading color.
The reading of actual color is then matched to the characteristics of the paint base to determine how much colorant to add for mixing the final color.
How Big Does a Paint Chip Need To Be?
If you are bringing in a paint chip from your wall, a piece of something else painted, or any other item you’re wanting to match.
Additionally, the paint swatch should be at least one square inch for the best results as the spectrophotometer needs that size in order to accurately read the color.
Can Home Depot Match Paint Colors From Other Things?
While we generally think of matching the color that was already there from a paint chip or old can of paint, Home Depot can also match from fabric, plastic, drywall, metal, and other materials.
So, if you really want your wall paint color to match the new couch you just bought, bring in a fabric swatch for the spectrophotometer to read.
If your furniture store didn’t provide you with a fabric swatch, you can often take a small piece of extra material from underneath the couch, or take the cushion cover off and just bring that.
One thing to note is that Home Depot is unable to match the sheer fabric.
Can Home Depot Match Paint Color From a Picture?
Yes, there are a couple of different ways this can be done. The obvious method is to bring in a printed photograph that has the color you want in it.
For instance, you might have traveled somewhere and found a wall color that you really like or you may have taken a picture of a wall in a friend’s house.
If so, there are a couple of issues to consider with this method. One is that the ambient light of the scene photographed might have affected the color balance of the captured image file which would mean that the photograph isn’t a true rendition of the color you remembered.
Another is that you’ll still need one square inch of the color, so if the print is small, it might not read the color you want.
However, there is another method of color-matching a photograph that might work better…
Is There a Paint Color Matching Smartphone App?
Yes, there is an app for Android and iPhone smartphones that works in several ways. One way is that the app has access to the entire paint color palette from the paints Home Depot sells. You can just scroll through color after color to choose paint.
Another way the app helps you choose a paint color is that you can take a pic of your home, interior rooms, or exterior view, apply the color to the walls, and the app will change your picture to show the walls in that color.
The app will also read a color off of whatever you point it at and then tell you what paint choices there are available to make that color.
The app will also show the color of your walls, either interior or exterior. Find it on the Apple App Store, Google Play, or on the Home Depot website.
Can Home Depot Match Other Store’s Paint Colors?
Home Depot carries a wide variety of paint brands and types of paints, so the paint you bought at another store (e.g. Lowes) might be carried already at your local Home Depot. I
f it’s a paint brand not carried by Home Depot, you can get a color match by printing in the paint can to the store.
As an example, if you have Sherwin Williams or Benjamin Moore paint you’d like to match, simply bring in a swatch of these paints and Home Depot will be able to mix them with no issues.
Many of the color formulas of popular paint brands are in the database of Home Depot’s paint programs, so the computer can provide a match for most paints available currently.
If the paint color formulas are not in Home Depot’s database, then you can obtain a match by the spectrophotometer as mentioned in a few questions above.
What Brands of Paint Does Home Depot Sell?
Home Depot has several brands considered as standard paints across all their stores while some specialty and regional paint brands may also be available in a small number of stores.
Here is a list of the regular brands of paint at Home Depot:
- Behr Marquee – their best paint with stain blocking and special finishes available.
- Behr Ultra – high quality with a measure of stain blocking.
- Behr Premium Plus – good for most basic paint needs.
- Rust-Oleum – formulated for metals and plastic materials.
- PPG Timeless – pro-quality paint often with minor stain blocking.
- PPG Diamond – pro-quality paint.
- Glidden Premium – lower-priced pro-quality paint.
- Glidden Essentials – their most affordable paint brand.
If you have questions about what brand and quality you need, ask the paint department employees for assistance and they will help you make the best choice.
What Types Of Paint Does Home Depot Sell?
Home Depot currently sells a huge range of paint types and paint products for indoor and exterior use, including oil-based, enamel, lacquers, primers, shellacs, matte or luster, eggshell, semi-gloss, gloss, and high-gloss are the most common sheens (listed in or order of shininess).
To learn more, you can also see my guides on whether or not Walmart mixes paint and if Home Depot can make window screens.
Conclusion
Yes, Home Depot can match paint for virtually any project you have in mind. They have various ways to make matches for you such as in-store color matching from old paint, paint chips, and swatches of fabric. They even have a smartphone app for helping you get exactly the paint color and type you need and want.
