Lighting Temperature and Sample Boards for Kitchen and Bath Finishes

In a house with small mid-century windows in Riverside, CA, the same quartz chip looks cream at noon and green by evening, so a sample board for kitchen and bath remodeling has to be judged in the actual room (the boards kept at riverside kitchen bath remodeling marcia hadjimarkos are built that way). Showroom lights are tuned to flatter, and the house is not.

What lighting temperature does

Warm bulbs push finishes toward yellow and red, and cool bulbs push them toward blue. A warm white countertop under a cool bulb goes grey, and a grey tile under a warm bulb goes beige. Pick the bulb temperature first, and judge the finishes under it. Mixed bulbs in one room make every material look different from one corner to the next.

Daylight in a Riverside house

West facing windows pour hard orange light into a kitchen late in the day, and the Box Springs Mountains to the east keep morning light softer. A north bathroom gets flat, cool light all day. Check the sample at morning, noon and evening, because quartz with a pattern and glazed porcelain tile both change under angled sun.

Building the board

Use one board, about the size of a cutting board. Glue on the tile with a grout joint, a chip of the countertop, the cabinet door or a painted card, the faucet finish if a loose sample can be had, and the grout. Everything touches everything else, because finishes are judged by their neighbours, not alone.

Carrying it between rooms

Take the board into the kitchen, then the bath, and stand it on the real counter or vanity. Compare how the cabinet finish and the faucet finish behave in each. A bath lit by a small frosted window in a postwar tract home shows colour very differently from a kitchen with a big sliding door, and the same board settles both.

Light in the evening

Most people use the kitchen and bath at night, so view the board under the real ceiling fixtures and the under cabinet lights. Under cabinet strips in cool white make a quartz backsplash look icy, and a warm strip makes it glow. Dimmers change the look again, so test at full and at low.

Durability check on the same board

Scratch the cabinet sample with a coin, drip water and oil on the countertop chip, and wipe it off the next morning. A finish that keeps its colour and gloss after that is likely to keep it for years in the house. The board that survives a week on the counter is the one worth ordering from.