Sherwin Williams Silver Strand – Undertones, LRV and More

When it comes to soft and subtle, it would be hard to beat the look of Sherwin William Silver Strand. With its soft blend of colours, Silver Strand is a great way to NOD towards colour on your walls, without 100% commitment. However, it’s a bit of a ninja…

But before we get into Silver Strand’s finer qualities, let’s chat about my master bedroom and why Silver Strand was a GREAT choice for it.

I’d been watching this colour for years on Pinterest and had recommended it to many E-Design clients. So when it came time to repaint our master bedroom and bathroom for the sake of resale/mass appeal, it was my the first colour that came to mind (we’ve since sold and moved…and moved again…), but that’s another story.

Our master bedroom was south-facing with a touch of eastern influence (tons of belly dancing), so it was basically a warm and bright room all day.

Here’s what it looked like when we bought the house…heavy, dense and drab.

Here’s the in-between phase…

The previous chocolate brown paint colour (shown above) was not Tim’s fave and was NOT good for resale, but I loved it and that was what mattered because IT’S ALL ABOUT ME. Well, in our bedroom it is, so the brown stayed for a good year or two and Tim survived.

And here’s how it turned out with Silver Strand (thanks to Details Painting, my uber-fave)…

And I’ll admit, that while Silver Strand (and colours like it) are generally speaking, ‘not ma jam‘, I did love the soft, casual look of it. I also didn’t want to change our gold drapes, light fixture, accent chair, lamps, etc…so Silver Strand was a great option to integrate those pieces, yet give the room a fresh new face that would have mass appeal.

In the end, my personal experience FURTHER enforced my perception that Silver Strand is a ninja, so without FURTHER ado, let’s get started…

The LRV of Silver Strand

Silver Strand has an LRV of 59, which makes it a light – but not necessarily light and fresh colour choice. My magical LRV number is 62 and Silver Strands falls about 25% shy of that. Compared to an LRV of 62, Silver Strand has just a wink more contrast with white trim and shows up slightly darker as an overall wall colour, especially when compared to a soft, cool gray like BM Gray Owl or the gentle warmth of BM Collingwood.

Read more: The Ultimate Guide to Choosing Paint Colour with LRV

The Undertones of Silver Strand

You will hear from some experts that colour is NOT subjective. And they’re right, the colour itself is NOT subjective, but how it LOOKS is HUGELY subjective based on who’s looking at it! For example, my Mom walked into our bedroom and said, ‘oooh, what a beautiful gray-green’. I see a bit of blue, but really, I see mostly green.’ I asked Tim what colour HE thought it was (you guys KNOW what a chatter-box he is…) and he said, ‘blue-green’. Thanks for comin’ out Tim. When I walked in, I saw a gray-blue with a wee wink o’ green – so really, the OPPOSITE of my Mom. As I said, it’s a ninja.

You can also expect a big shift depending on your exposure, the time of day, your furnishings AND the interior lighting.

Check out Silver Strand in this photo, the colour surfaced considerably…

And in the master bathroom (which happens to be east-facing), look at how grayed-out it looked…

And on a sunny morning, look at the reflection in the mirror – GREEN! Stuff like this excites me to no end (I’m easily excitable though…).

So, I’ll say it again and forever and ever amen – paint colours are TOTALLY subjective.

A Closer Look

Like every colour on earth, Silver Strand will change its tune throughout the day. Our bedroom was south-facing, leaning just a wee willy wink to the east. So while the morning light did cut the warmth back a bit, generally speaking, our bedroom was bright and warm looking throughout the day (and super hotsy-totsy at nite – wink wink).

Silver Strand in the mid-morning, sunny day

In the above photo…

• You can see in the middle of the wall how the natural light TOTALLY washed this colour out, which is what happens when light-ish colours are hit with a solid dose of natural, direct sunlight. If the window were bigger, the effect would’ve covered more wall space
• In the upper portion of the photo, you can see how the LRV of 59 made it a bit darker than you might think a ‘light’ paint colour would go, in fact, it reminds me a bit of BM Stonington Gray in its storminess
• Compared to some of the other photos on this page, it seems pretty darned gray – with very little undertone at all

Read more:  The 10 Best Gray and Greige Paint Colours

And in the above photo…

• Where the sun isn’t shining directly on the wall but offers some residual light, you can see how everything evened out a bit more. This is more or less what I saw on a daily basis

Let’s take a quick break to talk about paint samples…

Undoubtedly, you’ll be heading out in the near future to grab paint samples – stop right there! I want you to check out SAMPLIZE. Samplize offers peel and stick paint samples that are more AFFORDABLE, EASIER and more ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY than traditional paint pots. Here are just a FEW reasons why I recommend Samplize to my clients…

• Samples arrive ON YOUR DOORSTEP in 1-3 business days, depending on location
• At $6.99, they’re more affordable than the samples pots/rollers/foam boards that are needing for traditional paint sampling
• If you keep the samples on their white paper, you can move them around the room

Now, back to Silver Strand…

I also had one of my Online Colour Consulting clients use Silver Strand in her bedroom and it turned out GORGEOUS!

And it’s a great example to check-out as where my bedroom was south-facing, hers was north/north-east facing, so you can see how hard it leans into the blue in this exposure!

Read more: North, East, South, West: Which Paint Colour is the Best?

To sum it all up, when it comes to Silver Strand, it’s safe to say that, generally speaking, it will look like a gray-blue-green blend (because it is). A lot of grays do this because of the type of black that is used in their recipe, which can lean slightly to the blue side. But let’s put a finer point on things so that should you choose Silver Strand, you aren’t disappointed with the results…

• If you don’t like grays that can have a blue undertone, you probably won’t like this colour
• If you don’t like grays that can have a green undertone, you MIGHT not like this colour, but the green does tend to sit back
• If you LOVE grays that have cool, flexible and versatile undertones – this is an UBER fab choice
• If you love grays that are NOT ‘traditional grays’ and pick up blue-green undertones – you’re going to love it

So there you have it, Silver Strand. Hopefully, these tips helped you figure out if it’s the best gray paint colour for you!

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Check out my E-Design and Online Paint Colour Consulting packages! 

Chat soon,

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KYLIE M E-DESIGN     ONLINE, VIRTUAL PAINT COLOUR CONSULTING    SPECIALIZING IN BENJAMIN MOORE AND SHERWIN WILLIAMS