How We Found the Perfect Beige
Inventing Barbra:
All about our infamous friend
You’ve likely seen the name “Barbra” floating around our account recently. You might be in on the joke but it’s also very likely you missed it! Barbra is the beige paint color we are using in our kitchen and in this blog post we’re covering:
How we found her
How she got her name, and
How you can use her in your home!
How We Found Her
If you’ve been following our kitchen project from the start, you’ll know that we have gone through a LOT of trouble to find the right paint colors. Conceptually, we knew we wanted the look of white walls with a contrasting beige trim and cabinets. The hunt started with trying to find the “perfect” white for the walls, which then led to finding the perfect cabinet color.
Through much trial and swatching we eventually landed on Sherwin Williams’ Accessible Beige as a final cabinet contender. It seemed to have the right LVR ( light reflective value), it was warm beige, and had just the right amount of saturation (not too gray). In order to start testing it, we decided to first trial it on our back staircase. You can see that process through this Reel.
On the whole we were really happy with it!...but in certain lights and specifically upstairs, it was looking a little pink. No shade against pink, we love pink, but it’s not what we were going for.
Behind the Name
In addition to sampling the stairs we also moved forward with getting a door sample from our cabinet supplier, Cabinet Joint. They offer a great range of standard gray and beige colors but none of them seemed to work for us. They also offer the option of picking ANY Sherwin Williams color as custom color - we went ahead with ordering a door sample in Accessible Beige.
When the door arrived our initial reaction was “OMG WE LOVE IT!” but… it didn’t match the Accessible Beige we had painted in the back stair. We knew this was a possibility - Cabinet Joint disclosed that the finished process for Prism paint may vary slightly from the interior wall paint.
So what did we do? We brought that door sample to Sherwin Williams and had them color match it! And…it worked! (surprisingly well) when we painted a sample and compared them they were a dead-on match. THIS was our beige.
So now with a custom color on our hands we obviously needed a name for it? What were we going to say when people asked us what color our trim was? For that we asked all of you and well… I’ll let this TikTok do the talking.
How You Can Use Barbra in Your Home
So yes, Barbra is a custom color. BUT that doesn't mean you can’t get the color yourself!
Below is the color code you can bring into any Sherwin Williams location and they should be able to make it for you! Note, this is the code for a gallon of Emerald Urethane Trim Enamel (our preferred trim paint), but they should be able to do whatever conversion is needed for your paint type and size!
Now if we can just get Sherwin Williams to make Barbra official 😏 …
Are you considering using Barbra in your home? If you do, please let us know! We have loved seeing Barbra released into the wild!