What Is LRV in Paint? Light Reflectance Value and Why It Matters

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What is LRV? It stands for light reflective value and it’s all about how much light a paint color reflects!

I love getting into this stuff, I kind of nerd out on the specific details of design and paint is a huge element of decorating one’s home.

What is LRV?

Like I said, it stands for light reflective value. It’s a scale from 0-100 and each paint color is assigned a number on that scale depending on the amount of light it reflects.

The lower the number, the darker the color, and the higher the number, the lighter the color. So absolute black would be a zero, and the purest of white would be a 100.

Lots of people have strong opinions on what numbers are light, medium, or dark. I have a general range I look at, and you can decide what you think based on that.

• 60-100 light paint color
• 30-60 medium paint color
• 0-30 dark paint color

Now, as you get closer to 60, say 62, that would be a light color but bordering on the medium range. You get the picture.

Seems simple right? Well there is actually a lot of science that goes into what number a paint color gets on the LRV scale.

Where can I find a paint colors’ LRV?

Different manufacturers have their LRV’s in different places. The easiest thing to do is do a quick Google search.

Sherwin Williams makes it really easy by putting it right on the paint chip. Thank you Sherwin Williams!

Benjamin Moore makes it a little harder. You have to find the fan deck index.

Honestly, a quick search online is the easiest thing to do.

How does a color get assigned an LRV?

So this is where things get fun. A paint color gets assigned an LRV from an actual equation! It’s called the Bowman-Sapolinski Equation.

The equation is C = 125 (Y2 − Y1)/(Y1 + Y2 + 25).

Now I don’t know about you, but it’s been a real loooooooonnnng time since I did math like that, so I am just going to let the paint manufacturers figure it out and tell me what the LRV is.

Why LRV Matters in Interior Design.

It’s all about light. If you have a basement with very little natural light or a bathroom with absolutely no windows, then the LRV of a paint color becomes extremely important.

Let’s look at a few examples:

In this bathroom, the paint color was Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter, which has an LRV of 55.98. This is a medium paint color, but in a room with absolutely no natural light, it seems dark.

Here is the bathroom now with the holes patched up and painted Sherwin Williams Creamy, which has an LRV of 81, much lighter and brighter.

This is important in a bathroom because you want to have good brightness to see when applying makeup or shaving your face!

Here is an example of a dark paint color in a bright space.

My kitchen has great lighting! I often don’t even turn on the lights when cooking because there is a skylight that really brightens the space.

As you can see, we had a very dark color on the walls when we moved in. This color was in the kitchen and the back wall of our open floor plan, and the other color used was a medium depth color. I wanted to lighten things up.

Here is our kitchen now with Benjamin Moore Paper White (LRV 74.41). We used this on our entire first floor which has an open floor plan.

Not only does this lighten up the room, but look at the difference in the floors! They lightened up considerably.

This is because of the light reflecting in the paint color. Cool right?!

One paint color in two spaces with different lighting can look totally different! It’s amazing how it can change.

This is the same paint color as I used in my kitchen, Paper White. In the living room it shows much darker because there isn’t very much natural light in that space.

There are no skylights, and the backyard is full of trees, so even though we have all these windows, not much light comes in.

Moral of the story here is always, always, always sample a paint color in your space.

How to know if a paint color is right for you?

The best way to judge if a color is good for you then you will want to put a swatch on the wall and look at it over a few days. Look at it in different lights and decide if you really like it.

You can do this by getting a sample from the paint store and using a brush to put it up on the walls, but then you are left with a can that you can’t do anything with. Those samples are used with poor quality paint and aren’t meant for use on your walls permanently.

I recommend going with Samplize. They are a company that will send you a 12X12 peel and stick swatch of a paint color that you can stick to the wall. When you are done just peel it off and throw it away.

It’s easy and much less messy!

LRV in Exterior Design

LRV is extremely different in exterior design from interior design. Exterior paint colors will show 10 times brighter than they do in the interior of the house.

The reason for this is all the natural light the exterior of the home receives.

So, if you choose a really bright color in the high LRV range, it could look really washed out on the outside of your house. Whereas a mid-toned color will show as quite a bit brighter.

A dark paint color will also come across as lighter on the outside of the home. This is something you really want to keep in mind when choosing exterior paint colors.

Sample those colors and look at them on the exterior at different times of the day.

Common Misconceptions about LRV

Here are some common things people think have to do with LRV that don’t.

LRV has nothing to do with paint sheen. Paint sheen is a whole different animal, and the two are not related.

LRV is not about lightness, it’s about light reflecting, which can be different in every room of your home. Remember the pictures of my kitchen and family room. Same paint color, but one room is darker than the other.

Here is another example of that. The picture on top Paper White is on the window wall. It’s really bright, right?!

In the bottom photo, you can see a different part of the entryway and how the same paint color shows differently on the wall with the closet and the angled wall with the clock.

Hopefully, this clears up a little bit on what LRV is and how you can use it to your advantage in designing your home. It’s a great tool to get the look you want. And in the end, it’s just paint, and it can be painted over if you make a mistake.

Other Paint Color posts you might like:

• 14 Best Paint Colors for Dark Rooms
• How to Prep Walls for Painting
• The Best Paint Rollers for Cabinets and Furniture
• The Best Paint Brushes for Latex Paint
• 11 Must Have Supplies for Painting a Room Like a Pro
• 5 Tips on Choosing the Best Paint Color for your Home