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Paint: Brands & Colors

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appletini

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With all the home improvement and decorating threads lately I thought I''d start one about paint. DH and I finally found "the" house after a year of house hunting and the current owners have everything painted white (boring) so we will be painting everything.

What are your favorite paint brands and why? Also what are some of your favorite paint colors?

Kitchen: I''m looking for an apple/pear green
Master bed & bath: a grayish blue with white trim--a little darker than Mara''s room
rest of the house: to be determined
 

Skippy123

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Mara

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Check out Pottery Barn's color palette. They are Benjamin Moore paint colors and some are new for PB. But they are all very soothing and relaxing neutrals, blues, greens, whites/creams, etc. I really love those kinds of colors. Plus in their catalogs they have entire rooms done in the color along with their furniture so you can see how colors might work together in furniture etc. I wish they had that when we were looking at paints because originally I wanted the whole house done in this taupe they had a room done in the catalog. And our painter was like 'oh it's really hard to match from a magazine since the glossy page throws it off'...so we did something CLOSE but not quite the contrast I was looking for. And now I bet that color is a PB palette color! Oh well.

Also Restoration Hardware has a color palette done with Benjamin Moore as well. Similar kind of colors, but I find they go even 'cooler' in terms of shades than most of the PB colors. Like an icier kind of blue or green etc.

In terms of brands...I did a lot of research when I was going to paint our 2 rooms last year and I loved BM's color palette, that they offer a lot of tiny sample paint pots to try out colors for $4 or less, and also that tons of people recommended them and seemed really happy with the paint quality. Not to mention that many professional painters use them (or Kelly Moore I think is the other popular prof brand). Also our local BM store is SUPER helpful so I was really happy with their interactivity and assistance when I really needed it.

Another brand I have had great success with painting in the past is the Ralph Lauren line of paints at Home Depot...they also have the sample pot paints you can pick up and try out, I have used them in an old place to do the whole house and also for one room in our current townhouse. I tried I think the Behr line from Orchard and found it to be really lackluster and kind of thin.

I found ThatHomeSite forum really helpful as well while choosing colors because people tend to post a lot of pictures of their finished work and while your liighting etec might be different...it gives you an idea of what things might look like on the wall so you at least can get it narrowed down by looking at online pictures. There are SO many colors out there it's hard to choose sometimes.

Oh and one last tip...I found that the more people mention they used a color...aka the more popular a color is...there's a reason for it!! So I tended to gravitate a bit towards colors that seemed people really loved and were 'popular' for that brand because I felt it was more foolproof for me.
 

butterfly 17

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HI!

I am actually going through this right now as well. We are not too crazy about the colors of the house, but we had no time to actually paint before moving in because we were selling our house as well and we had to get out as soon as possible.

The only room we did manage to paint was the Master Bedroom. It was previously a dusty pink, like the family room, and we went with a Benjamin Moore Pottery Barn color called Grecian Green.

I wanted a lighter sage green and that colored seemed perfect.

I currently have a dusty pink family room and a sunset orange kitchen and a dark mauvy LR/DR. Oh, and a peach first floor bathroom.
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I personally don''t like dark colors and would prefer to get lighter colors, but since moving in and being here for a month, the dark mauvy color has somewhat grown on me to the point were it''s no longer a priority to have it repainted.

But the pink and orange has to go.

So, from the estimates I got, I have noticed that all the painters like to use Benjamin Moore colors. They like eggshell/satin finish for the walls and semigloss finish for the trim/window panes.

I prefer BM and Ralph Lauren colors myself.

The color I picked to replace my orange kitchen is called Terrazo Tan by Olympia and when I showed it to one of the painters, he asked me if I could get a similar color from BM instead, because he wasn''t sure if the Olympia brand would provide enough coverage.

I personally hate going to pick out colors because I feel no matter what you pick out, it always seems to look a little lighter or darker than the sample. And I hate having to make a choice.

When I picked the Grecian Green, I went to every single home improvement store to make sure that was really the color I want. I think I drove my husband nuts.

This time, I decided to go with colors from one of the BM brochures rather than going through the swatches. I picked colors from the Soft Colors brochure. Much easier IMO and less stressful!
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Finding_Neverland

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We had really good luck with Pratt and Lambert brand paints in the past. Very good quality with very good coverage and very durable. Plus, like pretty much anybody these days, they'll color match for you.
 

appletini

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Thanks ladies...Its a good thing we don''t close until the end of April because I''m going to need a lot of time to decide.

I did do some looking at Home Depot the other day b/c it was close by and Behr has a color named APPLETINI!!! But unfortunately it was kind a brownish green and not at all what I had in mind.
 

Mara

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oh and appletini don''t be afraid to get a $4 sample pot or three and test them on the walls. i paint along the baseboards to get an idea of contrast against our off-white baseboards, and door jambs or near a windowsill or similar. also a big vertical swatch on the wall to view in diff lighting, daytime, nighttime etc. you can easily paint over them with primer or just the regular paint when you are done experimenting. i found that this was WAY more helpful than using those paint paper swatch things, totally inaccurate. and also seeing the colors in the PB or RH mags helped me visualize what our room might look like (and online with THS forum etc). anything helps!
 

marvel

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I'll be painting the interior of my place also, and heard that Benjamin Moore paint is the best in quality. I love Mara's suggestion about checking out Pottery Barn's color palette...sounds like a great tip!
 

Miranda

Ideal_Rock
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I''ve used American Tradition and Olympic from Lowe''s and they are seriously CRAP. Don''t bother with them. Can you tell I am crabby about this. We painted our entire downstairs with the AT paint and it seriously needs another coat. The coverage is just terrible. I''ve only used Behr paint in the past and have never had any problems with it. I even painted a light lavender over an olive green and it only needed one coat (office became nursery). I am super crazy picky about paint colors and I usually spend a ton of money buying the sample jars or quarts if that''s the only thing available to make sure I LOOOOOOOVE the color. Congrats on the house...Home decorating is one of my favorite things to do.
 

moremoremore

Ideal_Rock
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I love Ben Moore and have always been excited about Pratt and Lambert and want to explore their colors one say soon!

I'm a gray blue freak and just in case you're interested as I was- had no luck with Restoration Hardware Atmosphere Blue but it could have been the lighting in the room...I ended up doing it only on the inside (inside of the window moldings and picture molding) that my bed sits between and it looks cool- like an extended headboard...I have yet to fix the damage (paint over the newly primed walls) where I began to paint...it looked horrible but it is certainly a pretty color...I have to say that my fav blue grays have come from glidden ....
 

appletini

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Last night I looked through the Pottery Barn Fall 2006 catalogue and found a few colors that I like...I will definitely have to test these out...these look better on paper than they do on the computer screen.

http://www.potterybarn.com/content/colors/benmoore2/stylehouse.cfm?cm_type=snav

Master Bed & Bath: Buxton Blue--its a greyish blue but will have enough contrast with the white trim and not be too dark

Guest Room: Salisbury Green--my current bed & bedding will be going into the guest room and it has a lot of sage green so I think this will tie in nicely

I''m really liking the Cornsilk from the Spring 2007 collection for the hallways and possible the living/dinning & den because they all open up to each other, and it will make everything look like it has more natural light than it actually does.
http://www.potterybarn.com/content/colors/fallpaint/stylehouse.cfm?cm_type=snav
 

jcrow

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we just chose our paint colors for our new house. we''re using benjamin moore.

muslin: trim & ceiling & cabinets
stone house: guest bedrooms and both bathrooms
scarecrow: living & dining & kitchen
 

gailrmv

Ideal_Rock
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Just wanted to say congrats on the house Appletini and also JCrow! I''ve had good experiences with most of the paint I''ve tried. I really like Behr from home depot. I usually just plan on doing 2 coats no matter what paint I am using, so I don''t think it''s a problem. We also like sherwin williams. I agree with whoever said that Resto has nice colors but that their pallette is more "cool" than most other places ie PB. We looked into getting bedding from Resto but realized that the cool green would not match our otherwise warm color scheme. I think painting is amazing. It just takes like $30 for a gallon of paint, and a few hours of time to completely transform the look and feel of your room!
 

Finding_Neverland

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Our last house had "Platinum" walls thruout when we bought it. Everyone that saw it asked if the walls were dirty. Nope. Just a YUCK grey color. But the previous owner had called it "Platinum". Yeah, Right!!
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I changed that all right!!

When we finally decided to sell a couple of years ago, tan was the rage. So I had the whole house painted "Sand" color. Very neutral, but,.......... It was beautiful!! Just dark enough to tell it was actually tan but not dark enough to darken the rooms.

At least our buyers didn''t have to deal with "Platinum".
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Cehrabehra

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My living room is "Zen Mist" by Glidden and it is a pearish sort of green... less yellow maybe but not blue.

My kitchen is "Chesapeake Sunset" by Ralph Lauren and it is school bus yellow - but gorgeous!!

My laundry is "Goldfinch" by RL and it is a lighter yellower version of the chesapeake

My stairwell is also RL but I cannot recall the color name... it is a slightly teal dark aqua greyish blue LOL

My office is "Ripe Currant" by Behr and is a dark red that took EIGHT coats to get color saturation!!! The smallest and most expensive to paint in the house LOL

That''s it... dining room is ancient pine and haven''t done the upstairs bedrooms yet... the downstairs bathroom is going to be a light blue/grey color and the little hallway is going to be a dark blue/grey color. Or purple haha!
 

diane5006

Brilliant_Rock
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I loved Benjamin Moore Paints...have used them in my last 2 houses...and now hopefully this one...once I get more settled...and every painter I know uses it...its not cheap tho

They had a color collection (don't know if they still have it) called the Serenity collection...all of the colors had a kind of ashy (grey/bluey) cool undertone...I can't find the collection card down here (not a lot of BM dealers) although they have the full set of cards

My fav is Peaceful Breeze...a taupe/beige AKA Cedar Key (or 982)...it is so hard to pick out colors...I also like the Winter Wheat (232) beige one they had too...

They had a great blue Quiet Moments (can't remenber the number) had a bit of a turquoise undertone...

One thing i found helpful...whas to cut up the little color card...so that the color you want is isolated (no white)...and then place it on top of you trim choice....then you can make a patchwork of the colors you want...to see how they all go...this works well if you have a place where you can see multiple rooms from on point of view...

and of course Linen White trim...

One other thing I have noticed (since I moved) is it it now the new thing to paint ceilings the same color as the walls...what happened to white...it works okay if you have high ceilings...and the crown moldings help...hmmmm

A friend of mine is having a house built and they did that there...but I suspect it was because the painters just wanted to spray the whole thing one color and be done with....
 

jcrow

Ideal_Rock
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gailrmv- thanks!! it''s definitely exciting!

diane5006- ours paints the ceiling the same color as the trim. so it''s not as dark as the walls.
 

Pandora II

Ideal_Rock
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I love Farrow and Ball''s paints. Gorgeous colours and a beautiful finish - they are quite expensive though. They have a shade called Pointing which is great for woodwork.
 

appletini

Ideal_Rock
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Pottery Barn just announced their summer paint color colection and guess what one of the color names is...Weekend Getaway! I might have to put that one in the guest bedroom...it just sounds so cute!
 
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