Deep Marsh

Neither bold nor shy - a yellow undertone with enough weight to matter and enough restraint to live with. In the Vista Paint lineup this is 0233.

38.0 on the light-reflectance scale puts it in the middle third, which is the part of the scale with the fewest surprises. At chroma 10.8 the yellow undertone is clear in daylight and softer under lamps.

A dining room or study suits this kind of mid-depth color, where the room is used at different times of day under different light. It holds up in a north-facing room, which is where warmth is usually missing. If a second wall color is wanted in the same room, Dunn-Edwards Snowflake keeps the jump obvious rather than muddy (roughly 49 LRV points from this one).

This color and blues and cool greys don't get along in the same room - they sit on opposite sides of the spectrum, so pairing them tends to feel like tension rather than contrast.

Warm metals - brass, aged gold, unlacquered fixtures - gain a contrast against this that they do not have against a lighter wall; it is a common reason people choose a color this deep in the first place. If the room needs more than one wall color, keep the steps far apart: this color, then something clearly lighter for a second surface, then a bright white above. Two similar tones just look like a mismatch; three distinct ones read as a plan (about 38.0 to 62 to 85 in LRV terms).

If the brand is not fixed, Benjamin Moore Indian River (985) is the same color by measurement - delta-E 0.37. 6 other-brand colors land within delta-E 2 of this one - a well-populated part of the spectrum with several near-equivalents to choose from. Matte or low-sheen suits it on walls; higher gloss will exaggerate the undertone.

It is lighter than 38 percent of the Vista Paint range. Vista Paint lists it in the C codes, alongside 1,421 other colors.