Guest room + hallway progress + paint thoughts

Ah, the experiments continue. This is hopefully a less meandering rendition of our current thoughts regarding painting the guestroom, hallway, and paint in general. I tried to break it down into little sections. Hopefully it’s more interesting than watching paint dry.

**crickets**

Ahem. First off: The Guestroom

Remember when we were in the throes of agony that our first round choices were a total bust? And then we did another round of swatches and were stuck between Polished Silver and -------? Well, we went with Polished Silver and love it!

It rolled on very nicely, surprising us after our previous experiences with Valspar Ultra (trim, master bath). And to top it off, we managed to cover in one coat (how is that possible?), with some touch ups here and there (that blend perfectly). Yeah, we did not see that coming. Best practice would call on us to do a second coat anyway, as it’ll probably be more durable, but I think for time and budget, we elected for the 1.5 coat application.

The only downside? Valspar’s colorants are definitely not VOC free. The trim is done in Ultra’s base white, so it is truly VOC free like the label says. However, Polished Silver has a definite odor. A few years ago, Benjamin Moore filed complaints against Valspar for the zero VOC claim (BM had launched Natura, which has VOC-free colorants).

Trim

Our earlier misgivings about Valspar stemmed from doing trim and the master bathroom. In the bathroom, it’s probably mostly our fault: we didn’t sand the walls smooth enough, someone glopped paint here and there, and the kitchen and bath paint was too glossy with too strong of an odor. For the trim, it showed brush strokes and would get tacky so fast, it was difficult to keep a smooth, wet edge.

When Mike painted his nightstand, we added Floetrol conditioner to our trim bucket. It’s supposed to slow the dry time and smooth things out. It seems to have helped. The guest room trim is smoother than in previous rooms and I only had tacky issues if I had paused to grab something to eat, switch out laundry loads, etc.

We are also using Zinsser’s Bondz primer on the trim to see how it compares to Kilz Premium. I like it. Mike is reserving judgment. Supposedly this will bond better than Kilz to glossy trim.

Progress

It feels like the guestroom project never ends. Of course, this is because we have other things we have to do, like work, sleep, clean, exercise, meet up with friends and family, and sometimes just relax. It’s frustrating, but I have to remember a few things:

• I was on vacation during the master suite makeover; now I'm not
• Sometimes reading, watching TV, or farting around on the Internet is more soul-nourishing than crossing something off the list
• We don’t really have any deadlines and we’re not competing with anyone

Cutting in and trim work takes waaaay more time than rolling. And our little bursts of DIY will probably become sparser as my teaching schedule has accelerated and I will have 4 Sundays on campus with my students. I just need to learn to be zen about things.

Hallway Project

Right now we are in that color picking phase in the hallway. The trim is primed, so the hallway looks both rough and sterile. We definitely want light walls but with a hint of color to contrast against the white trim. The shade also shouldn’t clash with the remaining cream in the two-story foyer/stairway. We have good stop points, but we still need to be sure the open half of the hallway doesn’t fight with the open foyer.

Also, now I really want hardwoods up there. Sigh.

Paint

So, the hallway project leads us to our latest paint frontier. As I was lamenting the stink of tinted Valspar, a Sherwin Williams 30% off coupon popped into my inbox. Supposedly the “pros” only like SW or Benjamin Moore (just visit painter forums, so much hatred for box store paints), so I figured the hallway project would be a good chance to test out a premium paint and use their zero-VOC Harmony line.

Challenge #1: Choosing an almost white

This post from Remodelaholic details how to choose whites. The main gist is that, unlike every other color, whites are best selected on the computer and/or chip decks, because the undertones are more apparent. With artificial lighting, it’s best to steer clear of yellow undertones, because they’ll definitely turn out beige. Rosy undertones will definitely look pink. The author suggests going for green undertones or a “true white” like Benjamin Moore’s Simply White, since it works with either warm and cool tones and neutralizes the effect of artificial light.

We figured these would be useful tips while choosing our nearly white color. I grabbed several chips and a white booklet at SW and we leaned them against the primed trim in the hall to see potential contrast. We did this in both parts of the hall: the open, yellow light balcony area and the more enclosed, brighter light corridor. Since the open area will have more light conflict (daylight + artificial light) and also joins the creamy foyer, I focused on what looked best there.

Because Polished Silver looked lighter (but still lovely) in the guestroom than on the swatch, Mike was leaning for going a little darker in the hall, until I pointed out we have to keep the foyer in mind. I suppose we could do a sharp contrast and just be hip like that, but trying to envision a cool blue or moderate gray bumping against a warm cream/yellow just didn’t jive in my head. And once Mike imagined it, he agreed.

We have a tendency to choose samples in threes (minus our guest room revamp), so we decided to pick one of each tone we were considering: Eider White looked like a soft neutral with a hint of brown, First Star is a super light blue that we thought would blend nicely between the deep blue of Cozy Corner (master) and Polished Silver (guest room), and then Reflection seemed like subtle gray with a hint of green undertone (but on my current monitor looks more blue).

Eider White

Reflection

First Star

So, off I went to SW. I’m used to our sample trio costing $9 at Lowe’s, so it was a slight jolt to pay $15 for three at SW ($1 off each sale, so it would’ve been $18!). BUT the samples are huge, so I just need to find projects for these suckers.

I threw Eider White up first and immediately saw a rosy hint to it that I couldn’t see on the chip or online. Sure enough, on the sample’s label, there is some magenta mixed in. We really liked the color, but the rosiness in the evening light bothered us, especially imagining it covering the whole hall.

Next came Reflection, the darkest of the trio. A really good color, but darker than we wanted. First Star is interesting, but we wonder if it might be a little too blue? You can't really tell in these photos. It's my top choice right now, though I like Eider when it's not getting its pink on.

Yes, I mislabeled First Star as North Star. Oops. 

Is Really First Star too cool for the hall?

Challenge #2: To Sherwin, or not to Sherwin?

Even though I had painted fairly heavily and with real brushes (not the foam), the gray swatches definitely need another coat. The brush strokes are very evident and beige shows through. Coming off the Valspar victory, we have to wonder: Are we going to pay extra for something that doesn’t cover well? At $52/gallon, you shouldn’t have to do more coats than a $28 paint. The only advantage would be if it, overall, performs better and is truly VOC-free (along with the discount).

So, I hit the Internet. The general finding?

• Harmony needs multiple coats, rubs/flakes off, and is not touch-up friendly
• Its current VOC status isn’t clear. Supposedly the colorants are VOC free, after BM and BBB slapped SW around, but sometimes the language sounds like it depends on what color you tint.

Plus, thinking back on our experience living with an SW flat paint throughout the first house and how easily it scuffed and burnished and was not touch-up friendly … I think we’re going to pass on this experiment. We can’t afford the premium Emerald line and we won’t be doing a spray application.

Challenge #3: Back to square one?

So, where does this leave us? Probably back to square one. Instead of thinking we are $15 down, I need to chalk it up to a learning experience, and I’m sure we can find uses for our large samples. So, this morning I'll be looking through Valspar swatches and seeing what the equivalent of First Star might be. Best practice means we should get Valspar samples to throw on the walls, since we know first hand that the color on the chip is more of a guide than a guarantee for how it will look on your walls. We could also try some samples from previous projects to gauge our preferred undertone, and then go lighter on the chip deck.

Takeaways:

BM’s Natura consistently gets top accolades for coverage and no-VOC benefits. I definitely want to try it, just have to time it right between coupons and projects. For now, I think we are cool with Valspar (and will likely revisit the less smelly Olympic again).