Customer Feedback

It's letters like this that make our day...

Dear Robin,
I am wondering if you could pass on my sincere thanks to one of your employees, Larry Wales, who literally saved my day last weekend. I had spilled some purple paint on a van floor that I was borrowing and was in a panic trying to get it off. I pulled into Daly’s and asked if anyone could advise me, thinking this was a lost cause. Larry Wales leaped up and confidently attacked the paint splotch, removing it completely! And all he asked was that I buy Daly’s paint in the future. Which of course, I will do!

You are lucky to have such a cheerful, competent, NICE gentleman working at Daly’s.
Sincerely,
P.C., via email

A lot of businesses talk about the value of Customer Service... this kind of feedback, especially during the crazy/busy summer months truly makes my day. It's not all just lip service to the idea of it.

Interesting Color Adventure

Over the last few weeks I've been working with a client to find the "perfect" color for her kitchen remodel. Her home is on a hill with a stupendous view of Puget Sound - this means there is a LOT of blue light that floods the room off the water. I have always found water reflections to be the most challenging when choosing colors. The changing nature of the light quality just makes it difficult to find a color that looks true in all lighting conditions, from day to night.

Well, we've been on quite a journey with our color. We decided the C2's "Mortar" was the right combination of neutral/taupe/stone. We then tried the same color but increased the formulations by 150% and 200% to determine which intensity would be the best.

An interesting thing happened. The color started looking "rosy". Not only that, but the other materials being installed, like the floor tile, looked different from the samples. Yikes!!!

So we then "de-rosed" the color. Ack. Too green! We also tried making the color without black tints, using complements instead. Lots of sampler pots and test quarts were flying out the tint room.

Nothing was quite right, and we were getting frustrated. We found a color in the Pratt & Lambert deck that was super close to "Mortar" - it is called "Seahawk", on of the tried-and-true colors that I've used for years. We looked up the formulation... Yellow oxide, low black and brown. Score! Checking the "Mortar" formulation it became apparent why it started giving a rosy cast - it contained magenta as one of the colorants. Aha!!!

However, interestingly enough.... "Seahawk" wasn't right either. Not alive enough. Apparently the magenta interacts with the other colorants in the formulation to make the color read better. So in the end, we pulled back on the magenta just a touch to minimize the rosy cast without getting rid of it altogether.

After weeks of color manipulation, we ended up almost back where we started. My client is getting her home painted this week. I can't wait to see it.