Mohalla

A dependable middle ground, carried by a yellow that reads clearly without needing bright light to prove it. Vista Paint's designation for it is 0351.

Light reflectance measures 35.0, which is enough to keep a room bright without bouncing light around. Chroma 15.7 keeps the yellow present without letting it run the room.

It has enough weight for a main wall and enough restraint for a hallway. In a room that gets little direct sun, this color's warmth does some of the work daylight would otherwise be doing. PPG Moon Lily 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 44 points apart on the reflectance scale).

Worth checking before committing to a full wall: blues and cool greys nearby - in a floor, a rug, a piece of furniture - will read as a clash here, not a complement, since the two colors sit at opposite ends of the spectrum.

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. The safest multi-color scheme moves from this dark wall to a noticeably lighter secondary tone, then to a near-white ceiling - three genuinely different depths rather than three shades of the same idea (LRV 35.0, 60 and 85, if you're matching by the numbers).

If the brand is not fixed, Benjamin Moore Shiitake Mushroom (CSP-1040) is the same color by measurement - delta-E 0.71. 4 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 holds the color truest; a subtle sheen will lift it half a shade under lamps.

It is lighter than 33 percent of the Vista Paint range. Vista Paint lists it in the C codes, alongside 1,421 other colors.