Normally, 18 colors would be more than enough for any kitchen countertop options project we would undertake, but the green colors we had weren’t quite the shade they were looking for. No problem, we choose the closest one to what they wanted, a willow green, and “tweaked” it. By that I mean we added another color, white in this case, to the green to more closely match the wall. For these custom colors we normally provide three samples for a small nominal charge so that the client can select what most closely approximates what they are looking for.
It’s important to note the word “approximates”, especially when it relates to color in any kitchen countertop options project. We are mixing a pigment into gray cement and though the quality of the pigments themselves is rigidly controlled, that is not the case of the color of “gray” cement. There is no color standard for gray cement and it varies widely from manufacturer and even regionally. We’ve seen gray cement that has green tints, brown tints, lighter, darker, i.e., its color ranges all over the map.
Why does this matter?, because we may show you a color sample that was made using a very specific amount of pigment and a gray cement that is a year and a half old and when we pour your countertop today, the final color is lighter or darker simply because their gray cement color had changed. In a nutshell, it will never be the same as the sample, just close to it.