Interior Paint - Several Tips for Choosing the Best Interior Paints

When it comes to interior paint, if you want to give your home the very best, or if you are starting your own painting business you may want to consider exactly which interior paints to use for your projects.

As a professional painter I know the time saving value of getting to know your products. When you find which products work best for you and how they perform you will be able to turn your jobs all that much faster with less headaches.

Below are some tips to help you do a professional job at home or on the job site.

1.) Which Brand to Use - Play it safe. Always use the best quality paints and primers. Don't show up at someone's doorstep with humdrum brands. Instead visualize that you are going to be painting a multimillion dollar home. Now what name brand of house paint would you choose?

Not everyone may agree on the same brands of course. Don't skimp on your own home either. After all, a man's home is his castle! They only exception is if you are doing properties or commercial work where quality may not matter as much.

2.) What to Use on Interior Walls - I like using a "Matt" finish. Matt finish is a lower sheen than eggshell, yet very washable, very architectural looking. Benjamin Moore has a nice Matt finish in their "Regal" line that is super washable and won't burnish when scrubbed.

3.) What to Use on Ceilings - the best interior house paint I ever used on ceilings is actually a primer made by Porter Paints called "Blanket" (PP 1129). It is basically a high hiding solid white block out primer.

While nobody would even think of using a primer as a ceiling paint, this stuff works really good! It leaves a soft, pure white, flat even finish with no streaks or lap lines. You can even tint it to whatever color you want. It also makes a great block out primer.

The benefits to using this solid white primer on ceilings are being that because it is a primer, it grabs to any surface. It dries and can be re-coated in just one hour and coverage is about 150 square feet more per gallon than regular paint. And it spreads way better than regular ceiling coatings. One last point is that you can tell where you have to roll on the second coat because the first coat looks like a primer coat.

4.) Woodwork Paint - in the old days up till the early 90's, alkyd or oil base enamels in the "satin finish" were the norm for woodwork. Benjamin Moore "Satin Impervo®" in the alkyd formula is still a market leader. Since the 1890's the government has cracked down on V.O.C.'s (volatile organic compounds) and some alkyd formulas may not be as fun to paint with as they used to be (some of the good stuff has been taken out of the paint).

Fortunately Satin Impervo now comes in a latex formula that is so awesome I don't want to paint woodwork with anything else. It feels and levels like alkyd enamel ought to. I also use their Fresh Start® All Purpose 100% Acrylic Primer 023 as my enamel under coater.

Sherwin Williams also has a good alkyd enamel called ProClassic® Alkyd and their PrepRite® Classic Primer which is also alkyd base and is an enamel under coater (holds gloss) is also an excellent choice. Both are also available in a latex formula as well.


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Lee Cusano has owned his own successful painting business since 1991. He has also helped many others to start their own painting business with his "Paint Like a Pro Estimating and Advertising CD-ROM". Lee has a new site where you can get a lot of free tips and techniques plus his painting course is available on almost every page. Please go here: http://www.betterpaintingtips.com