Sherwin-Williams Wool Skein SW 6148 outside: LRV 62.75, trim, shutters, front door and a Fired Brick and Hardware scheme

Sherwin-Williams Wool Skein (SW 6148) is a light, warm beige with a clean yellow lean and almost no red or green in it. Sherwin-Williams publishes an LRV of 62.754, an RGB of 217, 207, 186 (hex #D9CFBA), rates it for interior and exterior use, files it in its Yellow family and places it at 207-C1, the lightest step of its color strip. On a house it reads as a soft khaki-cream body color that holds up in full sun without turning white. It pairs naturally with darker colors from the same yellow-neutral direction, such as Hardware SW 6172, and with a deep red such as Fired Brick SW 6335 on a door or shutters. It is light enough to clear the LRV 56 limit Sherwin-Williams sets for painting vinyl, but only when it is not darker than the siding's original color.

Color values come from the makers' own pages and data. Color differences, chroma and gallon counts are our calculations, and the roof, shutter and brick advice is our color reasoning.

Wool Skein at a glance: the numbers Sherwin-Williams publishes

These values come from the color's page (Sherwin-Williams, SW 6148 Wool Skein) and Sherwin-Williams' public color data, which gives the same figures. Hex and RGB are an approximate digital rendering, not a tinting formula.

The Top 50 tag is a label in the data, with no rank attached. Wool Skein is also sold under the HGTV Home by Sherwin-Williams brand: its HGSW 6148 page shows the same RGB (217, 207, 186), rounds the LRV to 63.0, files it under Neutral, notes it was previously listed as Unravelled HGSW 3187, and says it is sold exclusively at Lowe's. Its buy links were for interior paint, and we could not confirm an HGTV Home exterior product in this color, so the product advice here applies to SW 6148 from Sherwin-Williams stores.

Is Wool Skein beige, yellow or greige? What the numbers say

Wool Skein gets called a beige, a greige and a soft yellow. The Lab values settle it. The a value, which measures the red-to-green axis, is −0.04: practically zero, so there is no pink and no green in the color. All of its color sits on the b axis, +11.67 toward yellow. That gives a chroma of about 11.7 by our calculation, where 0 is a perfectly neutral gray. In plain terms: a pale khaki-beige, more colorful than the popular greiges and less golden than a true cream.

What to expect outdoors, as a matter of color logic rather than measurement:

• Full sun, south or west wall. Lighter and creamier than the chip, but a color in the low 60s does not wash out to white.
• North wall, deep porch, overcast day. The yellow quiets down and the color reads closer to a soft khaki or greige.

What an LRV of 62.75 means on a house

Light Reflectance Value runs from 0 (black) to 100 (a perfect white). At 62.75, Wool Skein reflects a little under two thirds of the light that reaches it: clearly light, but well below the off-whites in the 80s such as Alabaster (82.22). That middle position is its main exterior advantage. It reads as a color from the street and it does not glare in full sun the way a white can. Our guide to reading LRV explains the scale.

The number also matters for vinyl. Sherwin-Williams' Duration Exterior data sheet says not to paint vinyl with any color darker than the original or with an LRV under 56 unless VinylSafe colors are used, because the vinyl may warp. Wool Skein clears the LRV part, but on white or pale almond vinyl it is darker than the original; the vinyl section below covers the workaround.

Strip 207: Wool Skein and its light-to-dark ladder

Wool Skein is the lightest of seven steps on Sherwin-Williams strip 207. The colors share a yellow-khaki base, so you can put two or three of them on one house without an undertone clash. Values from Sherwin-Williams' color data, all rated for exterior use:

A one-strip scheme: Wool Skein on the siding, Quiver Tan on the casings, Superior Bronze on the shutters. If you are weighing a deeper body from the same strip, our Universal Khaki SW 6150 exterior guide covers the C3 step.

A one-story house in Wool Skein with Hardware trim and Fired Brick: does it work?

A question that comes up often: what does a single-story house look like in Wool Skein, with shutters, Hardware on the trim and Fired Brick as the accent? The numbers say the scheme is coherent. Hardware SW 6172 (LRV 22.944, hex #8B8372) has a Lab a value of 0.00 and b of +10.28, the same pure yellow direction as Wool Skein, only much darker. It behaves like a deeper version of the body color rather than a second color. Fired Brick SW 6335 (LRV 7.873, hex #83382A) is a deep brick red, and it is the only real color in the scheme.

How to make it look intentional on a ranch, as a matter of color reasoning:

• Decide what Hardware covers. Casings, corner boards and porch posts in Hardware give a clear outline. A Hardware fascia adds a dark band under the roof that lowers a ranch visually; a light fascia keeps the roofline lighter.
• Keep the red in one place, or two at most. Fired Brick on the shutters and the door together reads as a traditional, country scheme. If the shutters are already busy, put Fired Brick on the door only and paint the shutters in Hardware.
• Watch real brick. Next to a red brick skirt or chimney, Fired Brick paint will not match the brick exactly. Our guide to front door colors for a red brick house covers that case.

For a classic light trim, see the next table. Our pages on exterior shutter paint colors, beige houses with brown shutters and cream houses with burgundy shutters show the neighboring schemes.

Vinyl shutters, vinyl siding and Wool Skein

On vinyl shutters, the scheme above runs into the vinyl rule. Hardware (22.94) and Fired Brick (7.87) are both far below the LRV 56 limit, and the SnapDry Door & Trim data sheet, which lists vinyl trim and shutters among its surfaces, carries the same warning as Duration: no color darker than the original or below an LRV of 56 on vinyl unless VinylSafe colors are used.

The VinylSafe palette is a separate collection, coded SWVS, that Sherwin-Williams presents as 100 colors, including a limited selection of darker colors formulated to resist warping or buckling. Neither Hardware nor Fired Brick is in it, and we found no red or brick swatch on that page. By our calculation from the hex values the page shows, the closest swatches to Hardware are Ground Hog SWVS 362 and Footprint SWVS 383 (both about ΔE 2.6). For a red accent on vinyl shutters, there is no VinylSafe option on that page; the simpler route is Fired Brick on a wood or fiberglass front door, and Hardware's VinylSafe neighbors on the shutters.

If the original vinyl is lighter than Wool Skein, the closest VinylSafe swatches by our calculation are Wafer SWVS 347 (#D9D1BC, about ΔE 1.0) and Pine Nuts SWVS 356 (#D9CDB2, about ΔE 2.1). Sherwin-Williams does not present either one as a Wool Skein match, so sample them side by side. Departing from the siding maker's painting guidelines may also void its warranty, and our VinylSafe guide walks through the palette.

Trim, door and accent colors with a Wool Skein body

Sherwin-Williams' own coordinating colors are the first three rows. The gap is the LRV difference against the body.

As we read these gaps, a trim gap under about 15 reads as tone on tone and around 20 gives a clear but soft frame. For the door, any gap above 50 reads from the street, so the choice is about warmth: Fired Brick and Urbane Bronze stay warm with the body, Tricorn Black is crisper. Our Sherwin-Williams front door colors page and colors that go with beige compare more options.

Wool Skein vs Accessible Beige, Kilim Beige and other look-alikes

The first rows come from the list of similar colors in Sherwin-Williams' data; the others are common comparisons. LRVs come from Sherwin-Williams; the color difference (ΔE2000) is our calculation from its published Lab values. A value under about 2 is hard to tell apart on a wall; above 5 is clearly a different color.

The practical reading: if your neighbor's house is Oyster Bar or Warm Oats, choosing Wool Skein will not make a visible difference. The real decision is against Accessible Beige, which is darker and noticeably grayer; our Accessible Beige exterior guide covers that color on its own, and the Natural Linen vs Accessible Beige comparison shows the lighter side.

Benjamin Moore colors near Wool Skein

There is no official cross-brand equivalent. These are the closest by our calculation from the LRV and screen color published on Benjamin Moore's pages.

Treat all three as starting points for a painted sample, and confirm the color can be tinted in the exterior product you buy.

Wool Skein with your roof, brick and stone

On a one-story house the roof is a large part of the view. These notes are our color reasoning, not a manufacturer's rule.

If you are tempted to paint the brick to match, read our paint or keep the brick guide first, and if your community has an architectural review board, check the HOA color rules guide before you order.

Which Sherwin-Williams product, and when to paint

Figures from the product data sheets:

The Duration data sheet also says not to apply if temperatures may drop below 35°F within 48 hours, and not to paint in direct sun. It asks for 2 coats on new, bare substrates and 1 coat for a repaint, a 30-day cure for new stucco, and a high pH-resistant primer such as Loxon on any surface above pH 9. On cedar and redwood, tannin can bleed into the first coat. More detail: the Duration Exterior guide and the SnapDry door and trim guide.

If the house was built before 1978, assume the old paint may contain lead. Under the EPA's Renovation, Repair and Painting Program, anyone paid to disturb paint in that housing must be certified. The rule generally does not apply to homeowners working on their own pre-1978 home, with exceptions such as rentals and home childcare, but the EPA still recommends lead-safe practices. If your ranch predates 1978, check before you scrape; our 1960s ranch repaint walkthrough covers the prep.

How much Wool Skein do you need for a one-story house?

Our arithmetic from the coverage figures above, for a color change where you plan on two coats:

• Siding. Take 1,400 sq ft of siding on a ranch after subtracting windows and doors. Two coats make 2,800 sq ft; at 250 to 300 sq ft per gallon that is about 10 to 11 gallons: two 5-gallon buckets and one extra gallon.
• Shutters and door. Eight shutters of about 5.5 sq ft each and a 21 sq ft door come to roughly 65 sq ft per coat, so two coats on both sides of the shutters and one side of the door stay well under 350 sq ft: one gallon of SnapDry in Fired Brick is enough, with paint left for touch-ups.

For a drastic color change, the SnapDry data sheet notes that a coat of primer improves the hiding of the topcoat.

How to test Wool Skein before you commit

1. Paint two coats on a 2 by 2 ft board, with a strip of your trim color along one edge.
2. Look at it on the sunniest and shadiest walls, at different times and on an overcast day, from the street as well as up close.
3. Put Relaxed Khaki beside it if it looks too pale in sun, and Accessible Beige if you want less yellow.
4. Try the whole scheme, body, trim and door, on a photo of your own house before buying a single gallon.

For the wider Sherwin-Williams exterior range, start with our Sherwin-Williams exterior paint guide and the Sherwin-Williams exterior color combinations.

Sources and references

• Sherwin-Williams, SW 6148 Wool Skein: LRV, RGB, family, strip, coordinating colors.
• Sherwin-Williams, SW 6172 Hardware and SW 6335 Fired Brick: LRV and screen color of the trim and accent.
• HGTV Home by Sherwin-Williams, Wool Skein HGSW 6148: LRV, RGB, former name, retailer.
• Sherwin-Williams, VinylSafe colors for vinyl siding: palette and swatches.
• Sherwin-Williams, product data sheets for Duration Exterior and SnapDry Door & Trim: vinyl rule, application conditions, recoat, coverage.
• Benjamin Moore, color pages for Clay Beige OC-11, Natural Linen CC-90 and Manchester Tan HC-81: LRV and screen color.
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Lead Renovation, Repair and Painting Program: pre-1978 homes.