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THE
baffled father posted a simple question online. “Any
idea what color would be great” for the bedroom of his
guitar-playing 13-year-old son? Kate Smith’s answer,
posted on her blog at www.colorforyourhome.com, pulled
no punches. Many teenage boy rockers “tend to want
black, white, gray with maybe some red, and while this
may work for album covers and stage costumes, it can be
unattractive and certainly unimaginative for a bedroom.”
A color
trend forecaster now working on her own paint line,
Smith suggested a deep blue-gray, such as Valspar
Paint’s Dark Night. “If the room is small,” she wrote on
the blog, “I’d use this same hue but go a few shades
lighter.”
There
are hundreds of blogs about furniture, design,
decorating trends and must-haves for the home, with new
ones launching nearly every day. They are written by
experts and amateurs alike who happily dispense their
opinions with varying degrees of authority.
In the
past year, a few design blogs that focus heavily on
paint and color have been started. Paint is universally
considered one of the easiest, quickest and cheapest
ways to transform a room. But it can also be the most
difficult, with consumers overwhelmed by choices and
hungry for advice. This is where the Internet comes in.
Blogs
are “such an easy way for people to get hold of
information. They don’t have to have stacks of magazines
and books. I really thought there was a gap that needed
to be filled,” says Rachel Perls, 33, of Baltimore. A
former pet portraitist who attended seminars at the
International Association of Color Consultants and now
advises residential and commercial clients, Perls
started her blog, at www.hueconsulting.blogspot.com,
more than a year ago.
“Mostly
people are asking about color courage and color
confidence,” says Smith, 51, who lives in
Lorton,
Virginia,
and began writing her blog last fall. People “come to my
blog with an idea and ask, ‘What do you think?’....They
don’t have the time or energy to make a mistake.”
Both
blogs offer a highly accessible, personal dialogue on
color, with conversation peppered with news from the
fashion, art, entertainment, architecture and marketing
worlds.
When a
reader of Smith’s blog asked for ideas about painting an
accent wall blue, she posted Behr’s Mexican palette,
complete with photos of vivid interiors and exteriors
and a link to Behr distributors.
“I’ll
get a product, use it and talk about it,” she says. “I
recently used Valspar’s Brushed Pearl paint and thought
it was the most forgiving faux finish I’ve ever used. I
am so OVER faux finish, but it was perfect for the guest
bathroom.” She got 13 responses to her upbeat assessment
of this paint.
Perls
says her blog queries cover the spectrum from where to
find a “yellow that doesn’t look strange” to “ ‘Do these
colors go together with these fabrics?’ They want a
right-and-wrong answer. There is no right-and-wrong
answer. It’s a reflection of their personal taste.”
When
“reader Christine” asked Perls for her most frequently
recommended paints, Perls cited two “high-quality”
brands: Benjamin Moore (for its color choices and
“beautiful, long-lasting surface”) and Sherwin-Williams.
She also gave Pratt & Lambert a shoutout as “awesome for
deep base colors like navy and deep, rich reds. BM reds
tend to be pinky. And SW has a significant problem with
their deep base, and reds tend to run and streak.”
She and
Smith know well the limits of the Internet, including
imprecise color and misinformation.
“It’s
hard to discern the professional from others who have
cut-and-pasted,” Perls says. Blogging “has turned
everyone into an expert because there’s no way to prove
and disprove.”
Each
mentions the same old wives’ tale that appears on design
blogs advising against painting a nursery yellow because
the color will make a baby cry. Nonsense, they say.
If
credibility is one problem, color variation is another.
This is why cyber-surfing for paint is only step one,
warns Smith, a recent speaker at House Beautiful
magazine’s Color Institute at the Washington Design
Center. Given the way computer monitors can distort
color, she sees no substitute for painting directly on a
large piece of poster board or a Tru-Hue color test
board, which mimics a wall surface, then studying it in
natural and artificial light.
“A
computer can do a lot of things better than humans,”
Smith says, “but matching color is not one of them.”
Facts
About Finishes
YOU’VE
found a color, but what about a finish? Flat paint hides
flaws, but higher sheen is easier to clean. Charlie
Boswell, president of Color Wheel paint and home decor
stores in suburban
Virginia,
offers this guide:
Flat
will not reflect light. It’s not washable and it absorbs
stains. Good for ceilings and imperfect walls.
Matte is
the lowest sheen that’s washable, scrubbable and
stain-resistant. Good for any room but a kitchen or a
bath.
Eggshell
gives “extra glow or richness,” Boswell says. It’s
washable and resists stains and moisture. Good in many
rooms, including bathrooms not frequently used.
Satin
has “quiet shimmer,” Boswell says. It can be washed
often and is very resistant to stains, moisture. Good
for kitchens, bathrooms and homes with children.
Semigloss is highly reflective and very washable. Good
for doors and trim.
High-gloss is mirrorlike and shows all wall flaws.
(Consider having a pro paint this finish.) Good for
molding, doors, window frames and accent walls.
A
Primer on Primers
IT’S tempting to paint walls without putting down an
undercoat of primer, but experts know better. That’s
because primer adheres strongly to surfaces, covers the
old color better and helps the final-finish coats slide
on smoothly and evenly.
Those
qualities are particularly important when covering new
drywall, when existing paint is in bad shape or when
you’re making a dramatic color change, according to
Gustavo Elias, manager of the Potomac Paint and
Decorating Center in Chantilly, Virginia. If you have
your paint store tint less-expensive primer to match the
final, costlier wall color, the job will cost less
because fewer coats will be required.
And for
a professional-looking job, Elias urges careful prep
work before you pick up a brush, especially for older
walls scarred by nail holes or numerous coats of paint:
Fill holes with spackle and let it dry. Use fine
sandpaper on all surfaces to even them out. Wipe dust
from walls with a damp cloth and let dry. Then prime.
The Longer It Takes, the Higher the Cost
By Belle
Elving,
The
Washington Post
WHEN it
comes to how much painters charge, as with so much else
in life, time is money.
A
bedroom with newer drywall in good condition and little
architectural trim work will take less time and cost
less money to have professionally painted than one with
aged plaster walls and yards of ornamental molding.
“Older plaster walls where we spend time stripping
wallpaper, repairing cracks, filling and sanding rough
surfaces can take twice as long as a newer house with
10-year-old drywall,” says Richard Winkler, owner of
Richard T. Winkler Painting and Decorating in
Alexandria, Virginia.
There
are two basic approaches to arriving at the bottom line,
says Winkler: a “contract bid,” which stipulates a set
fee for a job from start to finish; and a “time and
materials bid,” which allows for unforeseen problems
requiring additional work. The first approach gives
clients the comfort of a firm dollar amount, while the
second builds in flexibility to take whatever time is
needed to do the job well.
Here are
the chief factors that determine the cost of a
professional paint job:
§
Size of
the room.
§
Amount
of decorative crown molding, baseboards and built-ins
that require a different, typically semigloss, paint
finish.
§
Condition of the walls.
§
Paint
color and finish: the simpler the color scheme, the
easier the job, says Dave Arnold, a remodeling
consultant with Bethesda, Maryland-based Case Design.
More colors using different paint finishes (flat, satin,
semigloss, etc.) require more preparation, precision and
time. Coloring a dark wall with much lighter paint also
adds time. Never anticipate needing just one coat,
Winkler says.
§
Difficult access: stairways and elements such as soaring
cathedral ceilings often require extension ladders or
other equipment, which adds to the time and the bottom
line.
§
Moving
furniture out and protecting what remains. You can cut
the time the painters will need by doing the heavy
lifting yourself. |
