Naval but not quite right: My chemisty with Sherwin Williams

Ages ago I decided that something needed to be done to spruce up my old but beloved upright piano.  It just looked old and beat up, and not loved liked it should. 

After googling "Painted pianos" for months, I realized I just didn't want a painted piano.  I tried lightly sanding down the real wood laminate, but it was so old and dry.  I couldn't get a coat of stain to stay nice looking long enough to seal it and make it shiny like I had pictured. 

So I went back mentally to the painted piano idea.  The classiest pianos I've ever seen were glossy black and so beautiful.  But I didn't want a huge black piano in my new room.  Once I bought and hung the new JCPenney curtains in there, I realized how much I loved the deep blue and wanted to accent that color.

Voila: the blue piano concept was born.

This is where Sherwin Williams and my chemistry story starts. OK, maybe it isn't high level chemical engineering even a little, but it was been fun, and I've learned so much!

I pulled out my paint card and went to the deepest blue I could find: Naval.  It was the deepest blue I could find, but I felt like it wasn't quite right.  The guy at SW was awesome: he took an interest in my project, and really has come on board (haha...get it?) with me.  He said if the color wasn't right, bring the sample pot back, and we could tweak it: add a little black, a little blue, not as much white. 

I took it home and did some test coats on a piece of scrap, and it actually wasn't quite what I was going for, so I went back, and fortunately Terry was there to help me out again.  We added 20% more of all the colors except white (black, blue and magenta), and then added 15% more of the black and blue again after that. 

Magic.  I knew they would help you with colors, and I've always had good customer service there like the time they called the Baltimore store to find out which orange was "Orioles" orange.  This was great though...I felt like a chemist stirring potions in a pot to get the right result.  And yes, you can tell I was never close to being a good chemistry major if this has me feeling like a chemist, I get that.

So a few more test swatches and I have the color I want. 

Now: Am I brave enough to pull out the gray primer and actually paint my beloved piano?