Home Painting Tips
This Month's Tip - PaintingPainting is one of those things that you either love or you hate – at least that is my experience. Having recently undergone a whole house update/renovation, we have been left with the lingering taste of painting as one of the final steps in the renovation project. All in all, we are very happy with the painting, but there are some ideas and tips that are now top-of-mind as a result of us working through a few “challenges” along the way. Here’s hoping that they can be of some use to you as well:
You may already know that there is such a device as a paint computer that "reads" an existing paint sample/chip and comes up with a "perfect" match by creating a combination of dye colors that will result in a gallon of paint that is, in theory, identical to the original sample. This is a brilliant way for getting paint that will match a faded color or fill the need when you can't find that old left over paint from the original paint job. My tip on this, though, is to enter this program with caution. While the concept is outstanding, the results can be varied. Before you go buying gallon upon gallon of the "matched" paint, try starting with a smaller sample and apply it to the desired area. Let it dry and live with it for a day or so to make sure that the match is really what you had in mind. Nobody's perfect - not even the paint computer.
A successful paint job hinges just as much, if not more, on the preparation as it does on the application. Masking tape is a wonderful thing, but it doesn't make friends with all surfaces. Be careful about applying masking tape to wallpaper and flat- paint surfaces. If left on long enough, the adhesive may end up removing small amounts of surface paint or surface paper, unnecessarily damaging what you were trying to protect in the first place. Shop around, as there are a myriad of styles, sizes and levels of adhesive for masking tape these days.
If you go through the effort (and sometimes agony) to select "just the right color" for your paint job, you want to make sure that your painter buys exactly that paint. Most painters have developed relationships with their favorite paint store, perhaps establishing volume discounts, etc.. Therefore, unless stipulated (and bearing in mind #1 above) painters might take your "just the right color" and have it "matched" at their preferred supply store. Well, this might be fine for ceiling white paint and low-variable colors, but just ask any paint representative if they think that a Pratt & Lambert paint color can be identically matched on a Pittsburgh Paint color-base or vice-versa. The answer is almost certainly going to be NO. So, if you really, really, really want and need to have that color dead on, then insist that your painter get the exact color name and number mixed under the same paint manufacturer name that you selected. This should lead to successful results.
You may already know that there is such a device as a paint computer that "reads" an existing paint sample/chip and comes up with a "perfect" match by creating a combination of dye colors that will result in a gallon of paint that is, in theory, identical to the original sample. This is a brilliant way for getting paint that will match a faded color or fill the need when you can't find that old left over paint from the original paint job. My tip on this, though, is to enter this program with caution. While the concept is outstanding, the results can be varied. Before you go buying gallon upon gallon of the "matched" paint, try starting with a smaller sample and apply it to the desired area. Let it dry and live with it for a day or so to make sure that the match is really what you had in mind. Nobody's perfect - not even the paint computer.
A successful paint job hinges just as much, if not more, on the preparation as it does on the application. Masking tape is a wonderful thing, but it doesn't make friends with all surfaces. Be careful about applying masking tape to wallpaper and flat- paint surfaces. If left on long enough, the adhesive may end up removing small amounts of surface paint or surface paper, unnecessarily damaging what you were trying to protect in the first place. Shop around, as there are a myriad of styles, sizes and levels of adhesive for masking tape these days.
If you go through the effort (and sometimes agony) to select "just the right color" for your paint job, you want to make sure that your painter buys exactly that paint. Most painters have developed relationships with their favorite paint store, perhaps establishing volume discounts, etc.. Therefore, unless stipulated (and bearing in mind #1 above) painters might take your "just the right color" and have it "matched" at their preferred supply store. Well, this might be fine for ceiling white paint and low-variable colors, but just ask any paint representative if they think that a Pratt & Lambert paint color can be identically matched on a Pittsburgh Paint color-base or vice-versa. The answer is almost certainly going to be NO. So, if you really, really, really want and need to have that color dead on, then insist that your painter get the exact color name and number mixed under the same paint manufacturer name that you selected. This should lead to successful results.
Labels: home decorating, house tips, painting
