What LRV means in paint colors and why it matters!
When I was taking color theory in design school, the first assignment that our instructor gave us was to paint a strip of 10 rows using one of the primary colors, blue, red or yellow, with the primary color in the middle, and black on the left and ending with white on the right. Starting with a primary color, you would gradually add black of course, to make it eventually look black. And you would do the same with the primary color adding white until you ended up with white.
I thought the assignment was very silly actually, but now that I’m a color consultant, I think the assignment was genius. It helped me understand and see, how one color, I chose blue, my favorite color, became lighter or darker by adding white or black. It was fascinating.
If you’re choosing paint colors for your home, you have likely run into the term “LRV.” You may have ignored this term, not knowing what it is, but ignoring it can actually make selecting a paint color more challenging. But if you embrace the LRV of a paint color (if you can actually embrace LRV) it could make your job picking your paint color a whole lot easier.
What the heck is LRV in paint colors?
LRV is light reflective value. There’s probably books written on LRV, lol, but basically LRV, or Light Reflective Value, is how light or dark a color is on a scale of 1 being the darkest, black, to 100 being the lightest, white, and every color falls somewhere in-between these two colors.
How is LRV important to you?
Firstly, it can help you select a color. For example, say you like a certain color from a paint chip with an LRV of 55, it means its in the medium paint color range. Sometimes a paint color may not look as dark as its LRV states, but once you get it on the walls, it may surprise you how dark, or light, the color actually is. The LRV is a guide for you before you buy paint to see if you think that’s the intensity you may or may not like.
Secondly, the higher or lower the number will tell you how much light a color will receive or not. The higher the number, the more the light will reflect off the color. We’ll see how this can be an issue for lighter colors, particularly among off-white and white colors.
Below are LRV ranges based on current design paint color trends, my experience, and taking the paint companies, Benjamin Moore & Sherwin William’s guidelines into consideration. This is just a guideline to help you make sense of where the paint color you are considering belongs in terms of the light to dark scale. Also, this is my interpretation of the design trends, my experiences and paint company’s recommendations. If you put 100 Color Experts in a room together, you will have 100 different interpretations of this scale. LOL. I’ve also rounded to the nearest 10’s for simplicity. Again, this is just a quick guideline. We’ll talk about how to use this, and testing later.
To see how this works in real life, we’ll use Sherwin Williams Universal Khaki SW 6150, Sherwin Williams Color of the Year 2025 as our starting point. Universal Khaki is a warm mid-tone earthly and timeless mid-tone tan with khaki undertones. Its LRV is 40.
0 – 40 DARK
An LRV from 0 – 40 is considered a dark paint color. 0 – 10 is very dark, with 20 – 40 being medium to dark. The challenge with a 20 – 40 dark color, is that when there is no light, natural or artificial light, the color will appear darker than it actually it is. That is something to consider when choosing a dark color whether its for your interior or exterior.
A darker color may require more lighting at night when there is not natural lighting. This would apply to using a dark color in your interior or for your exterior.
Sherwin Williams Protege Bronze SW6152 with a LRV of 9 is a dark color in the yellow family.
40 – 60 MEDIUM
Paint colors with an LRV of 40–60 are considered a medium LRV. They will reflect an average amount of light and are great to use inside or outside.
Photo: Sherwin Williams
Sherwin Williams SW6150 Universal Khaki, 2026 Color of the Year has an LRV of 40 so it sits right on the edge between dark and medium.
Sherwin Williams Relaxed Khaki SW 6149, in the same yellow color family, has an LRV of 50 placing it in medium category.
You can see the colors above, are very similar but Relaxed Khaki is slightly lighter than Universal Khaki with a 10 LRV point difference.
Higher LRV
A color with an LRV of 60 + is considered to be a higher LRV color. But a color with a 60 LRV is VERY different than a color that has an 85 LRV.
60 – 70 LIGHT
Colors with an LRV of 60 -70 are considered light paint colors.
Sherwin Williams Canvas Tan SW 7531 is a beautiful tan with an LRV of 64. This is one of Sherwin William’s classic colors and its not hard to see why. With an LRV of 64, its a light paint color, but not nearing the light or white colors yet. Doesn’t it look stunning with the crisp white windows and fireplace?
Photo: blacksburgbelle.com
SW Neutral Ground SW 7568 has an LRV of 70 which puts it into the light category. Its in the same yellow color family as the other colors above. With an LRV of 70, it could be considered a cream. Compare the paint color to the white subway tile and white kitchen cabinets to see why I consider it to be a light color vs. an light off-white color. The difference is quite minimal.
70-80 LIGHT OFF-WHITE
Paint colors with an LRV of 70 – 80 are a light and are considered to be in the off-white color collection. The closer the color is to 80, the color may look very light or white.
Photo: wildfoxpainting.com
Above is Sherwin Williams Aged White SW9180 with an LRV of 74 placing it in light off-white category. You can see that is in the yellow family with a beautiful creamy look and feel.
80+ WHITE
Color with an LRV of 80+ is definitely a white paint color. Ironically, however, the LRV only goes up to 90 for Benjamin Moore with Chantilly Lace, their whitist white and 93 for Sherwin Williams with Highly Reflective White. Both colors are their truest whites.
The challenge with paint colors that have a high LRV, is that they reflect alot of light. So much so that a white exterior, can look bleached out in bright white. And both white interiors AND exteriors can reflect green trees near them, making a room or an exterior appear greenish. Depending on your environment, picking a color with a lower LRV could prevent your interior or exterior looking green at high noon.
Photo: plan-home.com
Sherwin Williams Creamy SW 7012 has an LRV of 81 placing it at the top of the white category. Creamy is one of Sherwin Williams popular creams if you’re looking for a romantic off-white cream.
Photo: Housekeeping Bay
Our last color is SW Whitetail SW7103 with an LRV of 86. You can see how this is a light white with the same yellow undertone that we have seen with the other colors.
With the rooms above ranging from dark through to light, you can see how knowing the LRV of a color can help you in selecting a color. You certainly need to test your colors, but this can take some of the guess work out of choosing a paint color.
Is there a magic LRV that is best for a room?
No! Not really. Depending on who you talk to, some designers say you should stay in the white to off-white range for an open concept color. That’s typically a good idea for open concept. Some say for other rooms it should be in the medium range from 40 – 60. The current trend is dark and moody so some would argue that anywhere dark (lowest being around 5) to medium dark (20-40) would be great for a bedroom or office.
Generally speaking, I think a lighter color, anywhere from 70 -80 for an off white, or an 80+ in the white color collection, is the best for an open concept area which includes your hallways.
For the other rooms, bedrooms, dining rooms, bathrooms, offices etc, it depends on your design style, your family needs, and quite frankly, what you like.
Test, test & test your paint colors first!
One woman came to me asking about paint colors when she had her husband paint their living room for the THIRD time and she hated the color still! He said that she could paint it herself the fourth time. I’m not sure how she got him to paint the living room three times, lol, but if she had tested her paint color first, she would have avoided alot of time and cost.
Testing your paint colors first is so important for so many reasons. I always recommend people to test your paint first BEFORE painting or bringing in a a contractor.
Do you find picking a paint color overwhelming? I can help you with that! Pick from one of my many paint color consults and I’ll take the overwhelm out of the picture for you!
Hi! I’m Debi Collinson. Designer. Color Consultant & House Flipper.
I conducted my first color consult at the age of 7, for my father for one of his design | build | engineering projects. I’m an Interior Designer, a Double-Certified Paint Color Expert, with advanced training in kitchens + bathrooms!
Since 2006, I have helped hundreds of clients, just like you, to style their house to make it a stunning retreat, that is functional for the family AND that they love and enjoy their home. I was one of the first stagers in the industry when staging just started out, and I have helped hundreds of clients make money beyond their expectations when they sold their house. Throughout this time, I bought, renovated and flipped 9 “fixer uppers” for a healthy profit. I recently added flipping a coffee shop to my portfolio for fun!
In 2020, I moved my design business online. Sign up to receive my e-mails on my awesome design + color tips to create a home that you will love and enjoy and increase the value of your home as well!
