“….what is good taste and is it a quality worth noting in a person?… Taste is different than trend. Trend is current and fun. But taste shows you know what things mean, where they come from, why they exist, and what they represent. Very few young people have great taste – it takes too much wisdom. I once heard that wisdom doesn’t come with age, it comes with experience”.
- Cobi Ladner (previous editor of H&H magazine in a tribute to Nancy Jane Hastings, freelance contributor), 2002

I’m planning to take my rental walls from off-white to white this weekend. It was more difficult that I thought to find a white that wasn’t pink, blue or yellow. I think the fear with white paint is that it will create a cold, sterile effect which is why the dingy yellow-ish white usually prevails. White reflects colours from the contents of the room, and plays with light, creating a variety of coloured shadows as the natural light changes. By and large, of the real white-whites I’ve seen a lot of “cloud white”, “simply white” and “decorators white”, all from Benjamin Moore.

The winner so far is “simply white”, although I’m tempted by the name “cotton balls”. There is a phrase from a children’s book (which one?) that appeals to me for a room’s mood, “quieter than a cotton ball”. Full report to follow.

from Benjamin Moore's online fan deck