Paint 101 – What You Should Know About Paint
Paint 101
Love it or hate it, painting one room or every room in the house means having to make a lot of decisions. How well you make those decisions will determine whether the end result is what you envisioned. With so many brands and colors of paint on the market, choosing the type of paint and the right color can be tricky. If you want to work on a budget, you might be tempted to choose the cheapest paint you can find. The problem with this approach is that a cheaper, lower quality paint may take three or four coats when the one that cost double that amount only takes one. The easy way to get professional results is to hire trusted interior painting contractors with years of experience. At the very least, look to them for guidance on choosing the right paint for the job.
Choose the Quality
Paint gets its color from pigment that is made from a synthetic compound and added to a binder/solvent mixture. The quality of the binder and pigment are what determines the quality of any paint. The majority of interior house paints have water as the solvent, although there are also those that contain oil. The way that paint responds to cleaning when you try to remove dirt or a stain long after the application depends on the type of white pigment the color pigment was added to in order to make the paint. Paints on the lower end of the price scale do not have the same capacity for cleaning or covering existing dirt as those with better binders and higher price tags. Lower quality paints also fail to hold their color as long as better quality ones.
One thing to keep in mind is that no type of paint will fill in large imperfections in the wall. The surface needs to be repaired, smooth, and clean before it will accept the paint and provide a smooth finish. The best paint won’t produce good results if you don’t take the steps necessary to prepare the surface.
Choose the Finish
There are different finishes used for interior painting, including flat, satin, semi-gloss, and high gloss. For rooms where greater durability is needed, a high gloss finish is usually the paint of choice. The higher the finish the better it is to keep it clean. If a less shiny finish is preferred, semi-gloss is the next best thing. High gloss paint is usually used in bathrooms and kitchens. Flat or matte paint is usually pigment-rich and suitable for bedrooms where there is less traffic and more of an interest in expressing your personal taste. Satin finish paint has a low-gloss finish that is able to stand up to high traffic and can be cleaned. It is a good choice for living rooms and family rooms. You can also apply paint with texture by painting over textured wallpaper that is made to be painted or applying the paint with special tools.
Choose the Colors
One of the biggest mistakes people make is selecting a color of paint for a room based on a tiny little sample. Not surprisingly, the impact that a color has on a room is greatly magnified when it covers a lot of wall space! One way to eliminate the possibility of being overwhelmed and disappointed with a paint job is by using one of the new smart phone apps that lets you picture what any room will look like in a color before you paint.