Settled, side by side

Dead Salmon takes its name from an eighteenth-century decorating bill at Kedleston Hall, where 'dead' meant matte rather than deceased. The color is a muddy pink-beige — salmon left in the sun until only the memory of pink remains. At LRV 35 it is a real mid-tone with unusual depth for a neutral.

Costes is a Portola Roman Clay — a hand-applied plaster finish rather than a paint — in a dusty rose-terracotta. Because Roman Clay is troweled on, the color is never flat: it moves between pale pink and deep clay across a single wall, and the surface has a soft, suede-like depth that photographs like stone.