Making the right Paint Choices is key when embarking on a home painting project. Transform the ambiance of your living space effectively with Paint Pals. Our expertise as a professional painting service in Colorado spans over a decade. We’ve mastered the art of creating vibrant walls, bringing life to every room. Let our extensive experience guide you in choosing the best paint for your home
The Real Deal on Paint Choices: Insights from the Field
Water vs Oil base paints:
In the past, it was recommended that oil-based paints were the go-to choice for specific applications however now water-based paints according to the manufacturers are just as good and in some cases even better than oil-based paints. In our opinion, there is no reason to use oil-based paints in homes. There are some special industrial cases where an oil-based paint will still make sense but there’s no residential use case that we have found. Oil-based paints are more challenging to apply and work with. They also contain higher levels of VOC and is difficult to clean up. Use the analogy of mixing oil and water it doesn’t work, and clean up tools or any mishaps you need to use solvents that are high in VOCs usually flammable and not eco-friendly.
The only residential scenario where an oil-based product might be necessary is when priming certain woods prone to extreme bleed-through or tannin bleeds. Tannin bleed occurs when the yellowing oils in the wood seep through the primer coat. Since oil and water don’t mix, water-based primers struggle to block these tannins from bleeding through to the surface. In such cases, we might recommend an oil-based primer to effectively prevent tannin bleed-through. However, it’s advisable to use a water-based paint over this primer. Additionally, some of the latest water-based 2K primers are approaching the performance levels of oil or solvent-based options. The main limitation is their availability; these specialty primers are not always easily accessible and may not be found in local paint or hardware stores.
Paint Sheens and Their Properties
Another relatively new advancement in paint technology is manufacturers’ ability to produce flat and matte finishes with cleaning properties similar to satin and semi-gloss. Historically, it was easier to clean satin and semi-gloss paints due to their shinier, slicker surfaces. However, newer paints like Dynasty from Behr and Emerald Designer Edition from Sherwin-Williams have made significant strides in offering cleanability advantages to less shiny paints. This represents a significant leap in paint technology. For do-it-yourself homeowners, we recommend using eggshell or lower-sheen paints for easier application. Higher sheens like satin, semi-gloss, or gloss are more challenging to work with, as they tend to highlight imperfections and are difficult to touch up without noticeable differences under certain lighting.
When painting a ceiling, it’s strongly advised to always use a flat or matte finish. Ceilings are more prone to show imperfections than other interior surfaces, and nearly all ceilings are painted with flat paint for this reason. Additionally, ceilings are rarely touched, leading many paint manufacturers to offer ceiling-specific paints that are often the most cost-effective options. For true value, it’s hard to justify the extra expense on high-quality paint for a ceiling that won’t endure wear and tear. Many homes over 20 years old still have good-looking contractor-grade ceiling paint.
With these advancements, unless you’re using an older, very cost-effective paint, we recommend choosing paint sheen based on appearance rather than cleanability. In smaller spaces like bathrooms, higher gloss paints can create an illusion of a larger space due to increased light reflection. This is also true for color; darker colors can make a small room feel smaller. We believe the days of choosing shinier paint for its cleanability are over, given the breakthroughs in paint technology. Extensive testing on many high-cleanability low-sheen paints has confirmed these claims to be true.
Paint Choices for Every Space: Lessons from Our Work
Each room demands specific considerations, and our experience at Paint Pals has honed our ability to match paint types to room functions.
- For Living Rooms and Bedrooms: We lean towards latex paints with eggshell or satin finishes, thereby balancing comfort with a touch of sophistication.
- In Kitchens and Bathrooms: The practicality of semi-gloss or gloss oil-based paints makes them our preference for their resistance to moisture and frequent cleaning.
Related: Options For Painting a Kitchen - For Hallways and Active Spaces: Satin finishes are our go-to, given their resilience to high traffic and ease of upkeep.
- For Popcorn Ceiling: Are you looking to paint a popcorn ceiling? It is best to use acrylic latex paint and a paint sprayer to paint a popcorn ceiling.
Embracing Eco-Friendly Practices
The EPA and government regulations have forced paint manufacturers to produce new paints under a VOC threshold. Because of this many of the new paints available on the market are considered eco-friendly. VOC stands for vulgar organic compounds, these compounds in some cases are hazardous to the environment and to humans the state of California will list warnings saying that they can even in some cases cause cancer. There are many zero VOC paints available on the market if this is important to you that’s something you would want to make a criteria for when you choose a paint, because of the government regulations this has now become an easy task as many of the paints are zero VOC. There are even some specialty paints that claim to go beyond zero VOC in terms of eco-friendliness. Sherwin-Williams SuperPaint Interior Acrylic with Air Purifying Technology, for instance, not only is a zero VOC paint but has chemical compounds that absorb and eliminate VOCs caused by other building materials in a home. Especially with new builds many of the building materials such as carpets can emit VOCs.
The Paint Pals Promise: Quality and Customer Satisfaction
Our journey at Paint Pals is built on a foundation of delivering quality and ensuring customer satisfaction. From selecting the ideal paint to meticulous application, our team’s dedication to excellence is evident In the numerous paint testing experiments we’ve conducted. We have always dedicated time to actually testing different paints and their claims. Currently, we’re testing many of the cabinet paints and will report those test results as soon as we’re finished. Serving Timnath, Fort Collins, and the wider Front Range area, Paint Pals is synonymous with transforming spaces through skillful painting services.
Planning a painting project? Reach out to Paint Pals, where quality, experience, and value converge to create stunning living spaces. Let us bring our expertise to your doorstep and help you turn your vision into reality.
