Castle Dale

It reads as a neutral with a yellow cast. In the Vista Paint lineup this is 8438.

At chroma 6.3 the yellow cast shows up against a neutral background and disappears against anything with stronger colour. It holds up in a north-facing room, which is where warmth is usually missing.

15.0 on the light-reflectance scale puts it in the middle third, which is the part of the scale with the fewest surprises. Suits both quiet, restful rooms and busier shared spaces, which is most of what makes a neutral a neutral.

If a second wall color is wanted in the same room, Vista Paint October Sky keeps the jump obvious rather than muddy (roughly 35 LRV points from this one).

If the brand is not fixed, Benjamin Moore Bear Creek (1470) is the same color by measurement - delta-E 0.97. This is not a rare shade: 3 colors from other brands sit within delta-E 2 of it. A satin finish is worth it in a room that needs to be wiped down often, at the cost of showing a bit more of the wall's surface than a flat finish would.

It is lighter than 12 percent of the Vista Paint range. Among grays it is one of the strongest: only 1 percent of them carry more colour. Vista Paint lists it in the K codes, alongside 1,318 other colors.