This is Todd with Todd A Hess Painting Company. We’re here today to discuss the best interior paint to choose when deciding to do an interior project. The quality of the material you buy is highly important for many reasons. You get better coverage, usually with higher-end products. And what we mean by the higher end is most manufacturers have a low introductory level paint, a mid-end paint, and a higher-end premium paint. Lots of them, you’re probably going to be okay going in the middle range, but there are some things that you need to take into consideration.
If you’re doing very dark walls, you might choose premium paint because it’ll have better coverage. A lot of the higher-end paints have a larger amount of titanium in them. That’s the main raw material that determines coverage a lot of times. So when you’re picking for quality reasons, you’ll usually go premium end. When you want something that has good washability at lower sheens, like the lower sheen flats, eggshells and satins might be a little more washable with the higher-end premium product. But if you’re looking to put on an eggshell or a flat finish and you’re not changing color very much, maybe it’s a freshen-up coat, you’ll probably be okay going middle end. You’ll probably get the coverage you need because it’s the same color as what you’re putting on currently. So I think quality-wise, that kind of explains a little bit of where you want to be in the levels.
Now, the sheen has a big determination of… Let’s say your walls have a little bit of patching that you’re going to be doing, and you’re determining how much washability you want, as well, after you do this patching. Well, you’ll have to probably lower your sheen a little bit because when you patch something, the wall’s texture is different from the texture that was currently there. So you’ll want to lower your sheen to hide that maybe a bit more. Washability is probably achieved at a lot lower sheen now than in the past. So a lot of people might think, “Hey, we need to put semi-gloss on the walls to make it washable.” No, that’s where the quality part comes in. You go to a higher premium product; you’ll get a little bit better washability at an eggshell finish or a satin finish, so you don’t need to make your walls shiny. Washability doesn’t just have to come with how shiny an object, a wall, or a substrate is.
You’re finally in the process of where you want to choose your interior paint colors. And maybe you’re struggling with how the quality of the paint and washability you want to correlate to your color selection. So first thing I would probably do is ask, “Hey, am I going with a lighter color or a darker color?” If you’re going with a darker color, that will automatically tell me you’re going to want to get a premium product. And that’s just for coverage purposes. You want to be able to cover the walls you currently have with that color selection that you’ve made in a premium product. Washability or maybe you don’t want to have a high sheen on your walls, so you’re going to have the lower sheen on the walls to hide imperfection stuff. Again, you’ll want to go to a premium product because you’ll get better washability and durability at a lower sheen level.
Now, when it comes to the actual selection of the color, I would tell you that that’s probably going to be a personal thing, but you’re probably going to have two ways of looking at this. You’re either going to go, “Hey, I want to pick my own colors. I want my house to be mine.” Or you may want to have it be pleasing to a wider audience, and that would mean following the current trends you see inside your dentist’s office, your friend’s house, and the stores you walk into. And currently, we all know it’s like grays are still in, white trim is in, and some black trim is in.
And that way you can get some architectural magazines, take some notice to some of your friend’s houses when you go over for dinner, maybe when you go to your allergist or something. Look around, and see their current colors, if maybe they were just updated. And you can pick colors in that direction as well. If you’re struggling with color selection, reach out to an interior designer, do a color consult and have them help you out. I know that can be really difficult for people and it is, most of the time, the hardest thing to do in such a large investment when you do bigger painting projects.
So that’s what we have for you today. I’m Todd from Todd A Hess Painting Company. If you are planning to hire a painter in York, PA, Please reach out to us on our website, toddahesspaintingco.com, or give us a call at 717-881-5807.
