Farrow & Ball -worth it or cheaper alternatives?

devildog

I have F & B on walls in kitchen/dining room(ordinary matt finish) and would recc. It doesn't matter what gets on the paint-mud/grease from dogs coat, to cooking oil or tomato based sauces it all wipes off a treat without taking the paint off either.

abankerbutnotafatcat

We go to Brewers as its our nearest paint retailer and I prefer not to use the sheds. They do F&B amongst many other brands both similar to F&B (English Heritage, Little Greene, Fired Earth etc) and trade paints. We just go on their website which has all the brands offerings in your chosen colour so it's easy to compare. Last time our favourite colour ended up being Albany which they mixed in the shop and they gave us trade price too even though we were blatently diy-ers - prob not their best discount I know but less than standard retail.

http://www.designerpaint.co.uk/

Personally, as someone else said, I'd say that if F&B has the colour you want and the difference between that and the cheaper alternative won't mean skipping meals then go for it as otherwise you could be looking at those walls for a long time wishing you'd spend the extra £xx.

tigeress289

Very over rated and well over priced. They found a middle class market that thought that were getting that something extra. Nearly all the other makes are better in quality and price.As already posted, very few decorators use it or recommend. Waste of money.

devildog

I agree that it isn't particularly cheap but your suggestion that it was for those from a middle class market thinking they were getting something extra is ridiculous.
In my home I have F & B, Crown, Dulux and Johnstones. The staying power and finish of F & B has particularly impressed me(unlike the Crown)

nickj_2

devildog wrote: »

I agree that it isn't particularly cheap but your suggestion that it was for those from a middle class market thinking they were getting something extra is ridiculous.
In my home I have F & B, Crown, Dulux and Johnstones. The staying power and finish of F & B has particularly impressed me(unlike the Crown)

i was doing a job for one of my very wealthy customers who lives in a massive house - about 7 bedrooms , one of the biggest houses in the village , i was doing the hall landing and staircase which was a massive job of 3 floors , i had done all the ceilings , undercoated all the woodwork . all i needed was the clour for the walls to proceed . after wating about a day and a half , my customer had got thru about 12 dulux matchpots , none of which she liked .

i told her that i had a farrow and ball colour which i had scanned in to dulux on my van which i had used on a previous job , so i did a test patch for that . that got the ok , then one of her friends turned up and she was caaled in to give her opinion , " oh darlings, that's beautiful" i told her what colour it was and they both agred that that was the one . to play safe i just had the one tin mixed up , iwhen i put it on i couldn't work out why it was a totally different shade from the one that i had used as a test patch , and then i rememberedthat i had a 10 ltr tub of magnolia which only had about an inch of paint left , so i had tipped this in with the other paint , when i was doing the test patch my brush was only dipping into the magnolia , not the F&B colour

needless to say , i didn't tell her that it was magnolia, i finished the job and she was delighted with the colour

namecheck

Professionals don't like F&B ... and sneer at people (like me) who think it's great.
Unless you just want any-shade-as-long-as-it's-white, you are likely to be studying the paint charts for what you want. Dulux can mix lots of colours/shades but very often can't match what you have chosen on the F&B chart.

devildog

nickj-As long as your customer was happy then it was a job well done.
I do all of my own painting so I do know what I am putting on my walls, equally I do my own cleaning too so I know which of the brands that I have used scrub up well.

As soon as I get around to it the room painted in the Crown will be done with F & B(if only I had tried it first!

nickj_2

namecheck wrote: »

Professionals don't like F&B ... and sneer at people (like me) who think it's great.
Unless you just want any-shade-as-long-as-it's-white, you are likely to be studying the paint charts for what you want. Dulux can mix lots of colours/shades but very often can't match what you have chosen on the F&B chart.

i would say that 99 times out of 100 it gets as near as possible , as i have already stated - dulux has over 12k colours so i'm sure if i put a dulux scanned colour up against a F&B you wouldn't tell the difference

namecheck

nickj wrote: »

i would say that 99 times out of 100 it gets as near as possible , as i have already stated - dulux has over 12k colours so i'm sure if i put a dulux scanned colour up against a F&B you wouldn't tell the difference

'Maybe'...however, I wanted an F&B colour matched to Dulux and the trade supplier could not come near to the shade. They were not surprised that F&B is difficult to match, despite the thousands of Dulux colours.

Idonex

We just painted our two living rooms (is a period property) with F&B Estate Emulsion. Finish looks no different to a normal Dulux matt, it marks really easily and you cannot wipe it at all. No idea why people seem to think F&B looks better in a period place...Also used their Estate Eggshell on some woodwork and it's crap. Marks easily and is nowhere near as tough as normal oil based eggshell that costs half the price. As far as i'm concerned the only reason to get this paint is if you absolutely can't find the colour in anyone else's range.

I've painted various rooms in our house using Dulux Vinyl Matt, Dulux Diamond Matt, F&B Estate Emulsion and Little Green Ultimatt and the best paint so far is the LG matt by a long shot. Has the nicest finish, doesn't mark too easily and if you're careful you can rub off marks. In fact wiping off on the Ultimatt is easier than wiping the Dulux Diamond Matt (another ridiculously over priced paint) and it leaves far less of a shine mark.