Matching Paint

I have an odd color in my bedroom.  It doesn't bother me because I'm usually in the dark there.  And it is 25 years old.  The paint can is long gone.

But a few years ago, I had some electrical work dome and ended up plasterig some holes.  I sanded them down just fine, but I didn't have any paint left.

So there the patches sit mocking me in the whiteness of the plaster...  I mock back by turning out the lights... 

But there comes a time to fix all things and I decided to prime and paint the plaster patches.  I assumed that, because I knew the name of the paint, a match would be easy to get.  Silly me!  I looked up the color name "Aztec Rouge" and went to the DIY store to get a match.  And they had no idea what I was talking about.

They have some really cool equipment there.  They can match any piece of color I bring in.  But they only match colors by formulas in their books.  If I gave them a pice of my wall, they could match the color because their machine tells them to take a white base and add an ounce of this and 3.5 ounces of that.  Voila!  Which IS pretty impressive. 

But I didn't have a piece of wall to give them.  What I DID have was the exact hue, saturation and lightness numbers (which define a color).  Because I found that no-longer-existing paint color on the internet.  The exact numbers are 4, 46, 84 if you understand that stuff.  I do because a former art-major girlfriend didn't and I learned enough to help her pass her "you make it" color-wheel chart (and she probably doesn't understand it to this day, but I hope she has a great life).

So I cave the hue, saturation and lightness numbers to the DIY paint department, and they had no idea what to do with them.  In fact, they said the numbers meant nothing.

And I was sure they were defining the color.  But when several professional paint clerks say they mean nothing, there isn't much to discuss.  So I went home and did some research.

Don't be shocked that I was right.  I'm used to it.  At a paint color-matching site, I found my exact color, and changing the numbers changed the color slightly,  so the numbers did mean something; the paint clerks just didn't understand them. 

The old paint no longer exists.  But I found one with only one number different by "1".  I doubt I could tell the difference, and the paint I found is slightly paler than the original and that should match the old paint better anyway.  But the the nearest store that sells it is 20 miles away.

That should be my worst problem, LOL!  At least I solved it. At least now I can get them to match it.  In Pittsburgh paints, the color is called 'Cranapple' and their book tells them how to make THAT!