Zeus SW 7744
The same colour against a light and a dark surround. It is not your eyes — a chip genuinely looks different depending on what sits next to it.
Zeus SW 7744 is a Sherwin-Williams colour in the warm grays family, with an LRV of 28.56 and a yellow-leaning undertone. An LRV of 28.56 puts it in the dark band: Makes a room feel smaller and calmer. Needs layered artificial light to stay legible at night.
What this LRV means
Indoors: Makes a room feel smaller and calmer. Needs layered artificial light to stay legible at night.
Outdoors: Significant heat gain. Many vinyl siding warranties cap LRV — verify before specifying.
Nearby in this family
Undertone becomes visible by comparison, not by assertion. These are the nearest colours by LRV within the same family.
How it looks by room orientation
North-facing. North light is indirect and cool all day. On a warm colour like this one, that cool light cancels part of the warmth: the result reads flatter and more neutral than it did in the shop, not warmer. It is the orientation a warm colour handles best, because it has warmth to spare.
South-facing. South light is direct and warm for most of the day, and that suits a colour at LRV 28.56: the light lifts it and stops it closing the room in. This is the orientation where a mid or deep tone looks its best.
East-facing. East rooms get warm direct light in the morning and cool indirect light for the rest of the day. This colour will read warmer and lighter before noon and noticeably flatter by late afternoon. In a bedroom that usually works well; in a home office used after lunch, check the sample at that hour.
West-facing. West is the reverse and more extreme: cool light in the morning, then direct, warm, intense light at the end of the day. That late sun is the strongest light this colour will ever sit in, and it is when any warmth in it gets exaggerated. It is the orientation that surprises people most.
These hold for the northern hemisphere. South of the equator, swap north and south.
Which sheen to use on which surface
Walls. Eggshell is the default interior wall sheen across most of the US: enough sheen to wipe, little enough to keep hiding minor surface flaws. In kitchens, bathrooms and children's rooms, step up to satin for the washability.
Ceilings. Flat. It scatters light and hides roller marks and wavy drywall better than any other sheen.
Trim, doors and cabinets. Semi-gloss. It is hard, washable and tolerates moisture. On cabinets specifically, a waterborne alkyd enamel levels out brush marks and cures far harder than a wall latex.
One caution specific to this colour. At LRV 28.56 this is dark enough that sheen shows. The more sheen you add, the more it will reveal every wave, patch and roller mark in the wall behind it. On a deep colour, dropping one sheen level usually looks better than adding one.
What it is typically used for
At LRV 28.56 this makes a room feel smaller and calmer, which is a legitimate goal rather than a fault. It needs layered artificial light to stay legible at night — a single ceiling fixture will not carry it. On an exterior it absorbs significant heat.
Within the warm grays family, this colour is placed by its LRV and its undertone rather than by its name. Two colours in the same family at a similar LRV can behave very differently if their undertones pull in opposite directions, which is why we publish both numbers.
Coordinating and trim colours
For trim. At LRV 28.56, trim needs to separate from the wall by lightness for the moulding to read as moulding. These whites from the same brand give that separation: Lemon Drop SW 7122 (LRV 88.29), Crescent Moon SW 7124 (LRV 88.24).
A step lighter in the same family. Dressy Rose SW 6024 (LRV 36.60) — useful for a ceiling, or for a monochrome scheme where the walls lighten as they rise.
A step deeper in the same family. Anonymous SW 7046 (LRV 20.31) — for an accent wall, the lower half of a wainscoted wall, or trim in an inverted scheme.
These come from measured LRV and undertone rather than a curated palette. They work because the lightness separation is sufficient and the undertones do not fight; even so, test the combination together on the wall before buying.
Matching this colour in another brand
We do not publish a cross-brand equivalent for Zeus SW 7744, because we do not yet hold verified manufacturer colour data for the other brands. Publishing an equivalence without that would be a guess, and a wrong equivalence costs you a whole repaint.
If you need to match it, the reliable route is to take a physical sample — a large chip or a painted-out piece, not a photograph — to the other brand's counter and ask for a spectrophotometer reading. A machine match from a physical sample is far more accurate than any published equivalence table, including ours if we had one.
Bear in mind that a match is never exact. Every manufacturer's bases and colourants differ, so a matched colour can agree under the shop's lighting and diverge under yours — which is precisely the effect that makes undertone matter.
Often confused with
Sources
- Sherwin-Williams. Sherwin-Williams Paint Color RGB Values (accessed 2026-08-17).
- W3C. WCAG 2.2, relative luminance — the formula our computed LRV uses.