King's Court

A mid-weight blue. Vista Paint's designation for it is 7224.

30.0 on the light-reflectance scale puts it in the middle third, which is the part of the scale with the fewest surprises. Chroma 15.9 keeps the blue present without letting it run the room.

Works as a whole-room color in spaces that are lived in rather than passed through, where its depth has time to register. A warm bulb is the easiest fix if this reads colder than expected once it is on the wall. Dunn-Edwards Lighthouse pairs well as a second surface - close enough in feel to belong in the same room, far enough in lightness to read as two distinct walls (about 60.3 points apart on the reflectance scale).

Rooms already built around oranges and warm terracotta are the hardest fit for this color - the two are opposites, and opposites next to each other rarely feel calm.

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. For layering, pair this with a clearly lighter mid-tone on a secondary wall or cabinetry, and keep the ceiling close to white. The gap between each step should be big enough to see without thinking about it (roughly 30.0 / 58 / 85 on the reflectance scale).

For anyone tied to a different brand, Behr Blueberry Buckle (600F-5) is the nearest stand-in, at a delta-E of 1.24. This is a relatively uncrowded spot in the spectrum - just 1 color from other brands come this close. This color reads consistently across most finishes, so the choice can come down to durability needs rather than how it changes the color.

It is lighter than 27 percent of the Vista Paint range. This is a crowded part of the scale - 581 colors measure within a point of 30.0 - so most brands will have something close. The name is not unique: PPG 1032-6 also sells a color called King's Court, and it is not the same shade. Vista Paint lists it in the K codes, alongside 1,318 other colors.