On one side I had all the design shows saying, its just paint! It’s an easy inexpensive fix – if you don’t like it, just paint over it! But lets be honest here folks, painting isn’t really that cheap. If you price out a gallon of paint it can cost you anywhere from $40 to $80. When you are painting over builder’s beige, it really soaks in so I find you use a lot more. And then there is your time, it can take days, sometimes weeks to finish up. Or if you hire a painter, the labour cost isn’t that cheap either. I guess all of this is relative to ripping out your kitchen or bathroom but come on I don’t have a few grand to throw around on painting the walls, x2 if I have to do it again!
On the other, I have visions of picking a colour that looks nice on the paint chip, painting the walls and having it up looking pink. Just what I’d need a brown and pink house…
So I hop online and start to do some research. I find that some interior designers will come and do a colour consult and help you to choose your paint colours. If they screw it up, at least I have someone to blame it on!
After viewing a few websites and looking at different designers portfolios, I make my pick. A lovely lady named Catherine. She came in, we talked for a few minutes about what colours I liked and didn’t, I told her about my brown dilemma and within 45 minutes she did what I couldn’t – make the decision on colours.
Here is what she picked:
A relief right? WRONG.
After she left, I took a second look at the colours she left me with and started to panic. All I could see was that she wanted me to paint the whole main level brown (Coriander seed). And how was that supposed to de-brownify?? I started having heart palpitations because I thought I had just wasted $150 on something that got me no further ahead. I called hubby on the verge of tears and told him my doubts. He calmed me down and said that he would take a look when he got home and we could make a decision then.
We decided that we would trust her choices and paint the rooms according to her plan. After all she does do this for a living and besides it is only paint, if we don’t like it we can change it…
So then the next big debate is…what type of paint to choose.
I am totally partial to Benjamin Moore paint. I used the middle of the road paint when we painted our apartment and fell in love. The colours came out true to the chip, it was easy to paint with and covered really well. My only complaint though was the price, it wasn’t the most expensive paint I’d seen but it wasn’t the cheapest either. With this being a new construction home, I anticipated having to use a lot more paint. But maybe I should prime first?
Every store that sells paint seems to have one type that has a primer built in. In theory it sounds good, but is it really? How can you paint the wall with paint and a primer at the same time? Why did no one think of this one before?
So off to my local BM store I went to find out prices and get some more information on this primer and paint combo.
Their line is called Aura, it retails for about $70 a gallon! The benefits that really attracted me were:
-recoatable in 1 hour. I was sceptical, but it’s true. You can basically paint a room and just keep going once you are done. The regular 4 hour wait time is what really drives me nuts – it seems like such a waste of time to wait around to finish a room. I was able to start a room at 7 and be done by 9 – two coats and clean up. This made it really easy to paint a room during a nap time!
-2 coats maximum, even on the deepest colours. Again I had my doubts but its true!
-Low VOC. It definitely did not stink up our place like the regular paint did.
Armed with my information in hand, it was now time to convince hubby. He reluctantly gave in but made one small request, to see if they offered any kind of a discount if we bought the paint for the entire house.
So I negotiated with the paint store and ended up with a 15% discount on all my purchases. Every extra penny counts right?
Let the painting begin!
No comments:
Post a Comment