Friday, July 27, 2012

SAGE ADVICE 2

Hey everyone!  Hope you have all had a great week.  It has been TOO QUIET here at the Casa.  Without my boys here causing chaos, it has been quiet lonely and quiet.  But they will be home very soon and they are having a blast with their Cousins and Grandparents.

Again I wanted to share with you all some advice in terms of PAINT.....

1.  ALWAYS USE TESTERS WHEN CHOOSING PAINT.  I know that when choosing paint, buying and testing can be a royal pain.  Lets face it, you are busy, you are anxious to get on with it and you just want to get it over and done with.  Now picking the wrong colour in the scheme of things really isn't the biggest mistake you can make in life, however, it will cost you time, money and well MONEY!!  That is why it is SO important to test your paint.  I cannot tell you how many times people have said to me, " I wish I had listened and bought a tester".  I will tell you till the cows come home that YOU and even ME for that matter CANNOT tell how a colour will react on the walls until you get it up there.  I have a little more experience since I know a thing or two about colour and how it works, but, until you get it up on the walls you WILL NOT get a true representation of a colour and that is just plain WRONG!!  I don't care who you are, using a 1"x 2" paint chip will NOT give you a true representation of how a colour will look. It will give you a starting point.  The colour you pick will always intensify when you have a larger sample to work with.  What is light watery blue on a chip will always do what I call "blue up" on a wall.  Blue has that unbelievable ability to get really blue even when you think a particular chip may have very little blue in it.  That is why it is so important to stay towards a more "grayer" blue when you want a subtle blue in a room or you end up with "baby blue".


Almost every paint company has testers now.  Except for one of my fav's and that's Home Hardware's Beauti-Tone Paint- come on Home Hardware - If you want to compete and show everyone how amazing your paint truly is you have to get yourselves testers for your customers- hopefully they are listening!!
I always use a 2'x2' hardboard that I paint for my test board.  You can pick up hardboard in any bigbox store- heck buy a "handy panel" and paint that.  Move it around the room at different times of the day.  That colour that you fell head over heels for at 10am..... well... you may just hate that same colour at 10pm.  So check it out in all lighting conditions.  That way you won't have to "live" with a colour because a. you don't want to paint again or b. can't afford to do so.  Get it right the first time.





2. NEVER CHOOSE A PAINT COLOUR BY LAYING THE PAINT CHIP HORIZONTALLY!!
Now what the heck does she mean by that??  Well..........  I can't even begin to tell you how many times I see in a big box store people will take a paint chip and have it out in front of them horizontally or on the ledge of the paint chip area and choose a colour.  Take that very same chip  and put it vertical on a wall and you have a very different colour my friends.  Try it out next time.  Lay a chip on a table and then put it up on the wall.  Presto- very different colour!  It is such a little thing but I see people do it all the time.  The same goes for your sample that you paint.  Don't just leave it on the dining room table or on your bed.  Put it on the wall to get the true representation of that colour.  Lets face it.  Light hits a horizontal surface far differently than it does vertically.  And we all know that light is a huge factor in determining how we perceive colour.


You should click on over to the source for the paint chips.  She has an amazing and very eye opening view on Paint chips!!  Love it!





3.  NEVER, NEVER PICK YOUR PAINT COLOUR IN THE STORE BEFORE GOING HOME TO CHECK OUT HOW IT LOOKS.  Again I have many times been in a big box store and seen people choose the paint that they are going to use right there and then without even checking it out at home.  And then they wonder why the colour looks like crap in their room!!  SERIOUSLY!!  First of all you need to TEST it remember.  Secondly, those stores are filled with CRAPPY flourescent light.  That light affects how you see that colour.  I am serious.  The colour that you see at the display will not even remotely be the same colour that you see if you take that chip to the window of the store or even what it will look like when you get it home.  The lighting in these stores is HORRIBLE!!  I cannot stress this enough!  Have you ever seen one of those light boxes in the paint area?  You know, the one where you put the chip in the box and slide the button so that you can see the affect of flourescent light vs.Incandescent light vs. daylight.  It really is amazing to see how the coolness or the hotness of light can affect colour.  Now I am not saying use that little box to pick your paint.  It is just agreat excersize in showing the affect of light on colour.










4.  DON'T BUY CRAPPY CEILING PAINT.  First of all it is CRAPPY paint.  It is cheap and not worth it.  Secondly, you won't even get a great "colour".  To me, you should be picking the ceiling colour just as you would a wall colour.  I know, I know...... that means more work.  But so what!!  Something worth having is worth the effort.  If you buy Ceiling Paint it will unvariably be a crappy dull and lifeless colour.  A little harsh maybe?  But that's my opinion!!  The main reason that I won't use CRAPPY Ceiling paint is that you CANNOT wipe it.  People say to me all the time.....  I don't wash my ceilings!!  Well I am here to tell you that if you have kids or if you are lucky enough to be like me and have crazy stuff happen all the time then you need to buy paint that will hold up to life.  If you use a washable flat (like I have), then when you drop that glass of juice on the counter and it splorks up onto the ceiling defying all laws of physics then you will be able to clean that said law defying juice stain.  Real paint will wash so much better.  A final reason I like Flat better for a ceiling is that it goes on better.  It splatters less, it goes on more evenly and it just looks better when dry.  Now I am giving a sheen of Flat as an example, my whole point is that you use good quality paint in the sheen that YOU like.  I happen to like Flat for ceilings.  But I also love Semi Gloss for bead board ceilings.







5.  PAINT MORE THAN ONE COAT:  I don't care what the paint says.  I don't care what the person says in the store.  Never, EVER only paint one coat.  STOP BEING CHEAP!!  If you are going to paint a room then do it right the first time.  I don't care what a paint says. You HAVE to paint at least 2 coats.  It makes me noodles when I hear people say.... " I painted the living room and only had to paint one coat".  That's great for you- but it won't hold up, it will look patchy and the colour won't be a true representation of the colour you paid for.  I mean..... you are going to all that time and expense, don't you want to get what you paid for?  I will argue this point to the ends of the earth.  And anyone who is a true professional will tell you YOU CANNOT AND SHOULD NOT PAINT A ROOM WITH ONE COAT OF PAINT !!!  Full stop- EVER!!  End of discussion!











Just wanted to pass along a few thoughts on paint.  There are more believe me.... but that's for another time.
Have an awesome weekend everyone!
Megan

1 comment:

  1. If you use a washable flat (like I have), then when you drop that glass of juice on the counter and it splorks up onto the ceiling defying all laws of physics then you will be able to clean that said law defying juice stain. 7 seater sofa covers online , jacquard bed sheets in pakistan

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