Ocean Cliffs

A background color by design, with a green cast that keeps it from being featureless. 8347 in the Vista Paint range.

At 5.6 on the chroma scale, this is closer to grey than to color, though the green cast keeps it from being either. This is a color worth testing in the specific room it is going in - cool colors shift more than warm ones do between north and south walls.

75.0 on the light-reflectance scale puts it in the middle third, which is the part of the scale with the fewest surprises. It is the sort of color that goes on every wall of a house without feeling overwhelming.

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 15.3 points apart on the reflectance scale).

By the numbers, Behr New Day (S420-1) and this color are indistinguishable - delta-E 0.78, well under what the eye can separate. This is not a rare shade: 6 colors from other brands sit within delta-E 2 of it. Matte holds the color truest; a subtle sheen will lift it half a shade under lamps.

It is lighter than 79 percent of the Vista Paint range. Vista Paint lists it in the K codes, alongside 1,318 other colors.