Thursday 7 January 2010

Light Grey-Sea-Green-Blue

Some days ago I wrote about the colour we had chosen for my nephew's new room. The original article you'll find here. I wanted to go for Dulux paint and was told that it no longer is available in Germany.

I investigated and, yes, in fact you cannot get Dulux in Germany anymore. ICI Paints, whose brand Dulux was, has been taken over by AkzoNobel in The Netherlands in January 2008. In England it's still available (I'm envious!). It took me quite a while to find out all these details because AkzoNobel's website still leads to a German Dulux page which even leads to an online shop! Finally I had to ring them to get the facts. What a rubbish is that! A company's website should give you realtime information. The way it is done here is completely useless.

I was so angry that I didn't even want to check AkzoNobel's replacement paint that was offered on the phone. Even worse, the replacement paint is not for sale in those very few good German DIY-markets but in the loud and cheap crap markets. Oh no!

Looking for alternatives I ended up with Alpina, a German manufacturer, well known for their quality but not so well known for a modern range of colours. But at least you can get mixed nearly any colour you want.

Went back to my favourite DIY-market KNAUBER just around the corner. They do mix Alpina paints. Yeah!

We looked through the colour charts and picked menta C4. That's exactly what we wanted. And guess what the saleswoman said? 'The colour you've chosen is an American colour'. WOW! She really knows her job! That's why I love this shop.
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