Latex, Oil, or Lacquer?

Though there are many brands and sheens of paint, the three main types of residential coatings commonly used in this country are latex (water based), alkyd (oil based), and lacquer (solvent-based). Each of these three different types of paints has very distinct and useful properties that make them widely used. Professional painters certainly know the different applications but for homeowners the choice can sometime be difficult.

Latex house paint is probably the most commonly used type of paint for residential applications. Most interiors & exteriors are finished with latex primers & paints nowadays. The main reasons for this are cost, clean, up, and environmental. All things being equal, latex paint is the cheaper of the three main types of house paint. And, being water-based, it is also the quickest & easiest to clean up after using (i.e. rollers, brushes, drips, spills, etc.) And, compared to alkyd paints & lacquers, it is the most environmentally friendly and has the lowest VOCs (volatile organic compounds). For painting walls, ceilings, and siding, latex paints are hard to beat.

There is one application where alkyd enamel paints are still more commonly used residentially, and that's for painting interior trim & doors. The main reason for this is that alkyd paints tent to "wear" harder than latex paints--meaning they take a bit more abuse before fading or failing. They are more "washable". And they tend to hold their sheens better. So, in new residental construction today, it's typical for painters to prep the house completely, spray the trim & doors (and sometimes cabinets) with an oil-based alkyd semi-gloss paint, then cut & roll the walls and ceilings in using latex (usually flats, egg-shells, and satins).

Lacquer coatings are more commonly used on cabinetry, though even in that application they are fairly unusual unless the cabinets are factory made & finished. The main reason for this is that most residential house painters are not trained to apply lacquers and the application requires special equipment--mainly an air compressor and a conventional-feed spray gun. (Latex & oil paints, when sprayed on, are most commonly sprayed using "airless" spray rigs, which most professional painters have.)

Lacquer's primary characteristics are super fast drying times, very hard and ultra smooth finish (when applied by an experienced pro). Lacquer has some cons as well--mainly cost (100% more expensive than oil-based paints for example) and difficulty of application. It also has a very strong odor and must be properly vented--which makes it unsuitable for some situations--namely when painting in a house or apartment this is occupied.

As a paint contractor I am fortunate to have subs that competently work in all three types of paints. So, depending on the particular application, I might spec out any or all of the three on a job. Recently we worked on a renovation of a 1930s garage apartment where we sprayed the interior trim & doors with alkyd paint, rolled the walls & ceilings in latex paint, and stained and sprayed the kitchen cabinets with clear lacquer. So, we used all three types on the same job.

http://www.medusaproperties.com/details.php?id=30

For most of my paint materials I use ICI. But for lacquer coatings I have to go to Murphy Brothers here in Houston.

Wikipedia has some interesting info on paint as well. You might want to check that out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint

What Are Some Good Ways to Find a Good Painter for My Project?

Should I Hire That Guy in the Home Depot Parking Lot?

For as long as I've been painting--and for many, many years before that I am sure--there have been guys hanging out in front of the paint store looking for work.

These guys range from the amateur just off the boat to the seasoned professional, who will usually be wearing the standard issue white painters pants and white shirt and carrying a satchel of some kind bearing the tools of his trade (and often his lunch!)... his 5-in-1 scraping tool, his paint brushes, and some mineral spirits and rags for cleaning up after a days work... and sometimes a even small radio to while away the work day on the job.

The questions for the homeowner is: "Is it safe to hire one of these guys to work at my house?"

Most people have heard the story of Elizabeth Smart, who was abducted from her home by Brian David Mitchell--a homeless man that had been hired by Elizabeth's father for a few hours several months earlier to do odd jobs around the family's home. Fortunately Elizabeth was found alive 9 months later--only 18 miles from where she was taken--still with Mitchell.

That is obviously and extreme example but one should be mindful of all possible outcomes--even the extreme ones--when making any decision in life. I've had mixed success over the years with hiring "the guys on the corner". Some have been excellent painters, some so-so--but they all had a story--there was always a reason why they were unemployed (and sometimes unemployable). Sometime it was attitude. Sometimes it was alcohol or drugs. I've found that they always start out on their best behavior, all smiles, willing to do anything for the chance to work. But usually within a day or two--often only a few minutes or hours--their true colors would show.

For the most part, the only risk you take with the guys on corner is having to repaint something that was done shoddily. But most of the guys hanging out at the paint store have at least SOME basic painting skills--and some of them are actually very, very good at their craft. And with the tougher economic times and the collapse in the housing & construction industries nationwide, I see more and more guys out there on the corner looking for work--many of them familiar faces. I feel for these guys--especially the ones I know--but the age old fable of the grasshopper and the ant is as true here as anywhere else. You can't fiddle all summer and rely on the kindness of stranger in the cold winter months. Or you may find yourself out in front of the paint store looking for day labor.

To be safe, if you are going to use a guy that's hanging out at the paint store, don't use that guy on a project INSIDE your home (if you are living there). If the house is empty (i.e. before you move in or after you move out), sure, why not, what's he gonna steal? Or if he's painting the outside of the house or the garage... again, fairly easy to contain the damage if something goes south. But you don't want a guy who you don't know rummaging through your jewelry box or your medicine cabinet when you're not looking.

If something were to go south after you pick up a guy on the corner to have him do work for you (painting or otherwise), the main thing you want to do is stop the bleeding as quickly as possible, don't argue about pennies, just firmly but politely tell him that he isn't doing the type of work that you need done and that you'd like to just pay him for whatever hours he's worked so far. No hard feelings. Don't get into an argument with the guy and get shanked over $20. It's not worth it!

Of course, hiring a "professional" doesn't guarantee that some of the same things won't happen--but at least you'll have an easier time finding the guy if it does. Assuming you are smart and you got a firm bid and a contract for the work he's doing you should now have a phone number, a full name, a business address, an email address, a website, etc. Many professional painters are bonded and/or insured as well--and some are members of organizations like the BBB or Angie's List and don't want to risk getting negative feedback from customers--so they'll typically do anything within reason to make you happy and protect their good name.

So, think carefully before picking up that guy in the white pants at the paint store... you never know what his story is... but you can be pretty sure that he's got one.

(If you've had any positive or negative experience hiring day laborers for your projects, please share them with us!)

Sherwin Williams vs. Home Depot

In an earlier posting I talked about how important COLOR is--more important in many cases than preparation or the quality of your materials. In this post I'm going to assume that you've got your colors picked out and that they are amazing--the "perfect" colors for your project.

I also wrote an earlier post about PRIMERS and how important they are--so, for the sake of this posting, let's also assume that you've got your prep done also--and it's perfect. (I'll write more about the various steps and stages of a great paint job in a future post.)

So, with those two assumptions out of the way, lets talk about BRANDS for a minute.

Sherwin Williams, ICI, Monarch, Ralph Lauren, Pratt & Lambert, Behr, Benjamin Moore, Olympic, Valspar... the list of choices (like the varieties of toothpaste and underarm deoderant) seem endless.

Obviously I'm not a scientist or an expert on the chemistry of the various paints. And, to be fair, though I've used hundreds--if not thousands of gallons of various brands of paint over the years, I've never done any "side by side" comparisons or any scientific long term studies (I'll leave that to the propellerheads over at Consumer Reports--who've done various excellent studies of paint brands over the years). But I have learned a thing or two about paint over the past 18 yrs and I'm going to try to organize them coherently and share them with you here.

First, brand doesn't really matter.

I'm sure that will raise the hackles of many Mercedes driving, Starbucks drinking, Versace wearing folks out there--to whom brands are their raison d'etre. And of course there's no question that some paint formulas are better than others and that certain types of paints are better for certain specific applications than others. But for the average consumer, painting the average house, under average conditions, brand is pretty much a non-issue.

If you've got the color right, if you've got the prep right--just about any ol' paint will do the job effectively. Ralph Lauren isn't better paint than America's Finest just because it costs 4 times more per gallon. They are both made by ICI (now Azko Nobel), the largest coatings company in the world. And They are both sold at Home Depot--along with their Glidden / Ultra Hide brand (http://www.akzonobel.com/brands_products/global_brands/decorative_paints/glidden.aspx).

But at the end of the day, Ralph Lauren is just a BRAND (http://www.akzonobel.com/brands_products/global_brands/decorative_paints/ralph_lauren_paint.aspx)--just like Martha Stewart (http://www.akzonobel.com/brands_products/global_brands/decorative_paints/martha_stewart_living.aspx) and Dutch Boy (also Sherwin Williams)--and Levi's and Coca Cola. And people buy them because of MARKETING, not quality.

There may be small differences in formula but if you've every bought a "designer" shirt or jacket that cost a fortune, looked great for about a week--then fell apart after a few uses--you've experienced exactly what I'm trying to convey here. "More expensive" does not always equal "better".

"Designer", in life--as in paint--usually means only "expensive" with the implication of "exclusive". I promise you that if you hire a house painter and tell him that you want a paint job that is warrantied for ten years and that you're willing to pay a little more for that warranty--and you let him choose the brand of paint--he's not going to show up with Ralph Lauren or Martha Stewart paint.

So... which brand of paint will the painter choose...? The answer that really depends on the painter and the region--but in Houston, where I live and work, more often than not the answer is going to be either ICI or Sherwin Williams. (And the reasons for that aren't just "quality" of course.)

*Part of that choice is convenience: There are Sherwin Williams and ICI stores all over the city.

*Part of that choice is PRICE: Sherwin Williams and ICI give paint contractors special, flexible pricing that the big box stores can't always meet or beat. If you are buying 5 gallons of paint for your DIY home improvement project, you might not think twice about paying $10/gallon more for a brand you saw on TV. But if you buy 1000 gallons of paint a year, even $1/gallon savings really ads up!

*Part of that answer is consistency: Sherwin Williams and ICI have been around for a LONG time and have the same basic product mix--in a much wider variety of options--than the big box stores. Home Depot & Lowes have a finite number of square feet in which to cover all the home improvement bases. ICI's entire warehouse & storefront is devoted to coatings. So, they are more likely to carry a few gallons of an odd or low volume product for a customer that buys it from time to time.

*And part of that answer is quality and service: Sherwin Williams and ICI (like many if not all paint specialty stores) have above average quality paint and great service. Go into a big box store once a week and you never know who'll be behind the counter mixing paint. They won't know you and you won't know them. Go into an ICI or a Sherwin Williams (or any other specialty paint store) every week and it's usually the same guys behind the counter... they get to know you and you get to know them and you get treated like a real mensch instead of just another weekend nameless, faceless customer in a long line that never ends.

Second, the right sheen is more important than the grade (quality) of paint. When I first started building and remodeling I obsessed about which grade of paint to buy... should I splurge and get the "top of the line" or pinch pennies and get the "builder" grade. Foolishly, for many years, I did the former, wasting thousands of dollars on bells and whistles that I didn't really need. Paint an apartment with really expensive, high-quality paint, and two years later, when your tenants move out, you're probably going to have to repaint most-if-not-all of that apartment again anyway--and you'll probably hate that color by then. So who cares if it had a "lifetime warranty"? (The lifetime of most paint jobs isn't really that long when you think about it.)

I also obsessed a quite a lot about the SHEEN (flat, eggshell, satin, semi-gloss, etc.)--too much so. After wasting a ton of time, energy, eye squinting, and money, trying to pick "the perfect" sheen for every single application, this is what I've boiled it down to:

90% of the walls, closets, and ceilings in your house should be plain old flat, latex paint. (I ALWAYS paint closets and ceilings flat, un-tinted white. More on that below.) The shinier the paint, the more attention it draws to every flaw on the wall or trim. So, unless you've got perfect walls, flat's the best call. Also, flat paint is the CHEAPEST paint at the paint store. So, if you end up changing the color in a week or a month or a year--the cost for the paint both times will be minimal. (A typical bedroom takes about a gallon of paint to cover all four walls.)

Trim, doors, and cabinets should be painted with an oil-based (alkyd) semi-gloss paint whenever possible. Gloss is usually way too shiny (see flaws above) and can appear almost plastic-like. Satin works in some applications but all paints are going to "dull-down" a bit over time as they get dirty and worn--so semi-gloss starts looking more like a satin in a few years... and satin starts looking more like eggshell or flat. So, I've found that semi-gloss is the best trade off for trim, doors, and cabinets. (Oil-based paints are harder wearing and more scrubable than water-based (latex) paints, so they're more suitable for trim, door, and cabinets--particularly in the kitchen & bathroom.)

Now for the exception: Bathrooms (which tend to get exposed to a lot more humidity). In Houston--which has ultra-high humidity--I use EXTERIOR, satin, latex paint for the walls and ceilings in my bathrooms (that have tubs and/or showers). Most exterior paints (in the south at least) have a mildewcide in them (from the factory) that resists mold & mildew. And a satin paint is not going to absorb as much moisture as a flat paint on a day to day basis, so when you shower and steam up the bathroom, if you use a satin, exterior paint, you'll be less likely to develop a mold or mildew problem.

Of course, you can paint your bedroom walls gloss purple and your kitchen cabinets flat pink if you want to--it's your house after all. But unless you are VERY rich or VERY stupid, RESALE VALUE should be important to you. So the colors and the types of paint you use can and WILL make a big difference to your bottom line down the road.

I mentioned above that I ALWAYS paint ceilings and closets white. Here's why. As a general rule of thumb, the darker the color, the smaller a room feels. I was restoring a house in the Heights once that had an 80s addition on the back with a huge, out of scale living room with 10' ceilings and a concrete floor. (The rest of the house was a typical 20s bungalow with 9' ceilings and wood floors on pier & beam.) There were only a couple of small windows in the entire room so I replaced those and re-framed the back wall for a set of four 8' tall French doors that really opened up the space. But before we had paint on the walls it looked cavernous in that big white box. So I painted the room with three shades of chocolate-y sepiatone colors--and put a dark slate floor with a dark hardwood inlay in the middle--and once we got the furniture in the room actually felt a little small-ish. The dark colors had visually brought the room down to scale.

Generally, you never want the ceiling to feel like it's coming down on your head. Colors on the ceiling--particularly dark colors--really pull the ceiling down visually. Also, if you just stick to flat white ceilings with colors on the walls only, it's a lot quicker and easier to change the color of the room later. And painting the ceilings is no fun... taping up light fixtures and ceiling fans, covering furniture, removing can light trims and a/c registers... drips and sprinkles of paint all over your head, arms and the floor... so, just paint 'em flat white once and forget about it as long as you live there. I promise you that you'll never lay in bed at night and look up and think, "I hate that flat white ceiling!"

Closets have similar logic behind the flat white color choice. They are small spaces by nature so darker colors make them seem even smaller. And since you only see them when you open the door, there's really no reason to have any color in there. And if you want to change the room color you don't have to empty out the closets and repaint them, too. Just paint 'em flat white the first time & forget about them. Spend your energy, time, and creativity on the rooms and spaces that you can actually see and enjoy every day.

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As I've said many times before, paint COLOR is way more important in most cases than paint QUALITY. If you could have a perfectly executed, horrifyingly ugly living room--with a lifetime warranty--at $35/gallon--or a slightly sloppy, gorgeous living room with a sumptuous color--for $8/gallon... which would you prefer? I've had both and I can tell you, the right color trumps quality every time.

To Prime or Not to Prime?

Whether to prime or not is a topic that comes up frequently on the job site. Obviously, if you are a paint contractor who has bid a job "turnkey", with a flat price that includes labor AND materials, you're going to want to complete that job as quickly and with as few materials and steps as possible. But if you bid the job "time + materials", you're not as concerned with your time or the cost of the materials. As the CUSTOMER, however, you are motivated by both quality AND cost--naturally you want the highest quality at the lowest costs. Obviously when those two competing interest meet, disagreements can occur.

Some painters would contend that it is only necessary to prime NEW wood--or to prime over strong colors or stains that would be more likely to bleed through the paint (say, if you were painting white paint over orange paint). But on my job sites, we prime EVERYTHING--all the time. The reason for this is part "better safe than sorry" and part "do unto others as you would have them do unto you".

For starters, I guaranty my work for life--specifically, workmanship. If the paint fades or mildews or chalks up--that's not a workmanship issue. But if the paint doesn't stick or doesn't cover--that's on me, that's my bad, and that's my responsibility to cure. So, if I'm painting your house, I'm pressure washing it first, then--after appropriate drying time--I'm priming, then I'm caulking, then I'm painting. That's the procedure that I've found results in the best long term performance.

Aside from ensuring a good bond between the paint & whatever it is that you are painting, priming also brings out the surface imperfections that aren't always obvious if you don't prime... things like cracks, peeling paint, nails holes, etc.--are all accentuated by the primer--making it easier to get the prep right.

Priming, along with property caulking, extends the life of any organic (i.e. wood) materials on the exterior of your home. We are often called upon to remove & replace rotten trim, siding, windows--and even entry doors--that were not properly primed when they were originally installed, causing them to fail prematurely in the wet, humid Houston climate.

Priming also help get the color right. If you are painting a blue over a red color, if you don't prime the red, you might end up with a greenish hue in the topcoat--as the two colors mix together. So, you might end up having to put a 2nd or 3rd coat of paint on to compensate--so you might as well put a coat of primer underneath and save yourself a coat of paint and ensure a proper bond.

The pros know--but many consumers don't--that primers can be TINTED to get them closer to the color you are painting. If you are painting a light color, the primer can sometimes be tinted to almost the same color, again, saving you time and paint by eliminating one of the top coats. If you are painting a darker color the paint store will probably only tint the primer to about 50% of the intensity of your top coat--because too much pigment in the primer will reduce it's bonding efficacy. But even then, the top coat will cover much better if the primer is tinted to the same general color.

The type of primer you use will also very from project to project. New drywall (sheetrock) requires a special "PVA" primer that seals the mud and ensures a strong bond. If you don't properly seal new drywall the paint can peel off VERY easily. And when priming over certain colors or drywall (usually ceilings) that have been "stained" by water penetration or mildew, it's best to use a stain blocking primer like "Kilz" (Masterchem) or "Stain Jammer" (ICI-Dulux) or "2001 Stain Blocking Primer" (Zinzer).

So, whether you are tackling a paint project on your own or hiring a professional, make sure that the right primers are a part of the job!

"It's the Color, Stupid."

Most of us of a certain age remember the famous phrase, "It's the economy, stupid.", coined by Democratic spin-meister James Carville during the Clinton / Bush election of 1992. Since then it has been co-opted and bastardized repeatedly by myriad pundits & talking heads on both sides of the political spectrum, as well as Hollywood and Madison Avenue.

The point of this saying isn't to be offensive, but to simply reinforce the "keep it simple, stupid" concept. Don't put the cart before the horse. Put first things first.

In the case of interior or exterior house paint, COLOR is by far the most important thing to focus on UP FRONT. Think about it. You can have the most experienced painter and the most expensive, high quality caulks, primers, and paints... but if the COLOR is wrong--it's ALL wrong. To put it another way: a perfectly executed turd is still a turd.

A customer in Montrose recently hired us to paint two, beautiful, classic, turn-of-the century mansions, side by side, on historic Avondale street. The houses had tons of amazing Craftsman style detailing... brackets, porches, intricate cornice work, stringcourses, lap siding mixed with cedar shake in the gables--the works. And, strangely enough, the one stipulation that the customer wanted--"in writing"--was that we use "This Old House" paint, which--at the time--was available at one of my local vendors (http://www.icipaintstores.com/toh/index.html).

He knew nothing about paint (and he wanted BOTH houses repainted PLAIN WHITE from tip to toe), but he had seen an episode of This Old House on TV and that had convinced him to use their paint--which was one of the most expensive paint you could buy at the time.

So, three weeks of washing and scraping and priming and sanding and caulking and painting later, he had two enormous, vintage, 3-story, BORING, white houses. I was so bummed out about that project that I never even put one of our signs up out front: I didn't want anyone to know that we were the ones painting those beautiful old houses plain white. And every time I drive down that street and pass by those plain white houses, I can't help but thinking to myself... "It's the color, stupid." This guy just dropped $8,000 per house but added very little value in doing so. (To be fair, the houses were in dire need of painting of any kind. But with the right colors, spending almost the exact same amount, he could have easily added $20-25,000 in value to each house--if not more.)

Of course, those are his houses and if he wants to hire me to paint them purple or shocking pink I'll give him the best damn purple paint job I can do. But nothing can make--or break--a painting project faster than a poor color choice. (And white on white on white is almost always a poor color choice for the exterior of a vintage Craftsman house.)

Obviously, as a painter, I get asked frequently by my customers to either choose or suggest paint colors for them. I learned long ago to tactfully avoid that minefield. Suggest the wrong color--no matter how beautiful or period appropriate--and if the customer doesn't like it--it's your fault--and they are either going to expect you to repaint for free--or have bad feelings about the job--no matter how well it was executed.

So, instead of suggesting specific colors, I started teaching people to make the best color choices they can, own their own, using some basic trial & error processes I've developed over an 18 yr career. Because at the end of the day, it’s their house, their office, their bedroom, their bathroom, their life--so it needs to be THEIR color. They need to own it.

Of course, there are people out there who are excellent at picking colors. Clothes, fabric, house paint, graphics—some people just have a knack for combining colors well. In some cases it might be innate; in others it might be training. In my experience—even in the interior design & decorating fields—people who don’t struggle with color choices are few and far between.

And then there are those who THINK they are great at picking colors—when it’s actually just a boat load of self-confidence that they possess. So, they’ll pick colors quickly and boldly and confidently—and even if they look horrible they’ll never admit it—to themselves or anyone else. I run into a lot of interior decorators who suffer from this delusion. (Of course, interior decorators get paid well to be “bold” and over the top… so they tend toward that direction by necessity.) Designers and decorators get paid more when their customers spend more--so the more expensive the paint, the more colors, the more faux finishes, etc.--the more money they make. They don't have to live in the houses when they are done--or write the checks to the subs.

One of the biggest problems that anyone choosing colors is going to struggle with is that different LIGHT makes the same color look very different. The same paint chip is going to look dramatically different in daylight than it does under the fluorescent lights in the paint store or the incandescent lights of your living room or kitchen. So, it’s important to try to pick colors in the same type of light that the colors will ultimately be seen in.

If you are picking exterior colors, take the paint chips OUTSIDE--preferably right outside your house, and pick them in situ. If you are picking colors for your bathroom, take the paint chips INSIDE the bathroom and pick the colors in situ. If the room you are picking colors for has a lot of windows, you’re going to want to pick a color that looks good in both natural daylight and under whatever type of lights you use in that space at night.

“That’s a lot of freaking trouble!” you may be thinking to yourself…. And, you’re right, it is a lot of freaking trouble…. But if you don’t get the COLOR right—you’re sunk before you even leave the harbor. Do you really want to waste $500, $1,000 $5,000, $10,000, painting your home or business the wrong color? So, a few hours of effort up front is well worth the trouble, right?!

The main method I use when choosing paint colors is the “chip on the wall” method. I usually have a generally idea of the basic color scheme that I’m interested in. That might be because of the era of the house I’m working on, the style, type, or colors of the furniture or artwork that will be in the room, recent trends—or it might be as esoteric as just “a feeling”. So, from that, I take my handy ICI-Dulux color wheel and walk around the room or the house or the yard and I flip through the wheel and look for five or ten colors that I think might work.

If I know I want a blue, then I stick to blues. If I don’t have a specific color in mind yet, I might stick to an intensity range (light colors or dark colors or neutral colors, etc). Often just eliminating the colors that you know you DON'T want is the most important thing you can do.

Once I’ve got some chips I like, I take some scotch tape or some blue painters tape and I tape up the chips in the room or on the siding or the door or whatever it is that I’m picking a color for. (It’s best if the walls or door or trim or whatever I’m painting have been PRIMED, so that I’m not looking at color chips on top of other colors. If everything’s been primed (white) and prepped and ready for paint, then I can pick colors in a neutral setting.)

Now, say I’ve taped up 10 chips around the room in the daylight… and I’ve spaced them out a bit so they’re not crowding each other… and I kind of walk around the room and “eyeball” the chips a bit and see if any colors jump out out at me—not as the final color—but as colors that I definitely DON’T want. Because the “chip on the wall” method is simply a process of ELIMINATION. You start with five or ten chips and your goal is to end up with ONE. And that chip is your color.

This process takes time; you need to see the chips in the daylight and at night, under the fluorescent or incandescent lights in the room. You want to see the chips in the morning and in the evening. As the day and night go by you should be able to eliminate all of the chips but one or two. And when you do, you take that chip to the paint store and you buy a can of the cheapest paint they sell, mixed in that color. (Why buy a $30 can of Ralph Lauren paint just to pick a color?)

Home Depot has a line of paint—made by Glidden—called America’s Finest. Flat interior paint in that line costs about $8/gallon. (Yep, that's a gallon--not a quart.) So, pick up a gallon in the color you think you like—buy a cheap, disposable roller & roller cover & plastic roller tray—and go home and roll up a few splashes of that color on the wall.

Try it on a couple of different walls in a couple of different places. Put it on pretty thick or put on two coats. Then LIVE WITH IT for a day or two… again, you want to see the color during the daylight and the night lights.

If you love the color—go with it! If you don’t—try again. Maybe it’s another color from the original chips you tried—maybe it’s a completely different color—but if you repeat the methodology, I promise you will eventually find the “right” color for that project. And if you burn through a couple of $8 cans of paint to make sure you get the color right—it’s a small price to pay overall. (You can sometimes use the “wrong” colors as base coats for the “right” color if they are similar enough….)

And if you are dead set on using that fancy, consumer brand paint—like “This Old House” or “Ralph Lauren”—fine—you wait until you get the color right before you blow your budget on that expensive (and often inferior quality) paint. (I know one painter in Salt Lake City that won’t warranty his work if you spec out Ralph Lauren paint—even if you provide the paint!)

Don’t forget: It’s not brand that counts… it’s the COLOR, stupid! J