The duplex deal that made me stop trusting paint chips

I was closing on a little duplex off Central near Nob Hill last spring, the whole place needed a refresh, so I grabbed a can of what I thought was a warm beige from the big box store. The chip looked perfect under those fluorescent lights, so I rolled the living room and it came out looking like dirty dishwater with a hint of pink. My buyer, a retired electrician who was picking up keys, walked in and just squinted and said, "you painted it before the sun hit the west wall, huh?" He showed me how the afternoon light through those old single pane windows shifts everything toward gray, and that warm beige turned into a cold mess. That was a $68 mistake plus two days of my time to redo it with a sample pot I actually tested on the wall for a full day. Now I always paint a 2 foot square patch and check it at three different times before I commit. Anyone else get burned by trusting the store lighting instead of their own walls? What's your trick for picking colors that hold up here in the desert sun?

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