Color Selection Tips

Trying to pick a color? Many customers in my store, Turner's Paint Store, have difficulty selecting the perfect color for their paint projects. One of the biggest reasons is a conflict between the color they want (or the one that works best with their stuff) and their fear of it being too dark.

I hear it almost daily: "I'm looking for a light red?" When the fact is, based on Light Reflectance Value (LRV), there is no such thing as light red. When you lighten red, it turns pink. Same thing goes with green and brown. Brown turns into mauve. Green turns into lime, mint, or teal. Sure, they're in the "green family," but they have changed to something else from the baseline Forest Green or Thalo Green.

Note: I could apply this to more color options, but I'll keep it simple for now and cover more colors in another article.

The point here is: people are usually happier with 1-2 shades darker than their first color choice. That, or they just end up picking a safe beige out of frustration and cut their losses (which often ends in a "blah" result instead of the fresh new look they were looking for).

Here is a bit of "perspective" for your color pallet:
1) LRV is rated on a scale of 0-100, with 0 being black and 100 being white.
2) The physics of design state that light defines the space, while color defines the shape and form. So rely on your lighting to define the size of the room, not necessarily the color.

Lets take the room you're painting, for example. Assuming the floor and ceiling are not going to change, take a moment to calculate the square footage of "finished" wall space that will be changing in LRV. After you have figured the total square footage of wall space (multiplying wall height x wall length = square feet of wall), add all the walls together. Then subtract the windows, doors, art work, and furniture that will cover the walls. You are now left with the total square feet effected by LRV. This is usually between 25-35%.

This means that your gut-level attraction to a color which probably has a LRV somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 is only going to have a fairly minor impact on the total sum. This is because you are only reducing 25%-35% of your space by 50% LRV which can most likely be compensated by adding one 40 watt bulb to the average living room.

In kitchens and bathrooms this is especially true since they are almost always well-lit and have little finished wall space. So if you're itching to add some spice but are nervous about dark colors, these are your opportunities to turn up the heat.

If you haven't seen it, take a look at the Color Language brochure from Benjamin Moore. Read this and you will have an instant boost in confidence and inspiration.

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How to Paint: Using Benjamin Moore's ADVANCE

We recently produced this video for Benjamin Moore--it highlights ADVANCE, their new water-clean-up interior oil-based paint.  It's great for trim or any other place where you might want the look of an oil, but don't want the stink and trouble associated with it.

You don't have to watch the video in tiny format--you can take it to regular, full-sized YouTube if you want by clicking on the video once it starts playing:

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Smoothing New Texture to Match the Old

In the Rattlesnake job, the taper textured a few damaged areas in an attempt to match the existing texture. But as often happens, his end result was rough and didn't really match. You might experience something like this on your own painting projects, and chances are that if you do, you don't know how to fix it.

In this picture, you can see how rough his texture turned out compared to the yellow wall on the right. If we painted it at this point, the texture would be too heavy, and it would draw every eye to the patch.

In the following picture, you can really see how rough the new texture turned out. It doesn't really look anything like the old wall.

So to fix it, all we need to do is get a wet rag and lightly rub away some of the new mud. Here I am using a rougher rag since its fibers will work like mild sandpaper.

When you wet your rag, don't use too much water--it dissolves drywall mud pretty fast. if you get it too wet, you risk removing too much mud and ruining your new texture. Just get the rag wet, wring it out, then ball it up so you have layers of rag between your hand and the wall. Err on the dry side at first, then go to the wall and start gently wiping in circular motions along the edge of the new mud.

In the following video (which I took from my phone, so it's not to our usual high standards) you can see how I do it:

Notice the scratching sound the rag is making--I am erring on the side of caution by not using too much water. It's still wet enough that it doesn't produce sanding dust, but it's not dripping with water either.

Just rub your way across the wall, taking down the high spots in the texture. Re-wet your rag as necessary (it will be), and keep going. You can see how much mud I removed--and it is starting to resemble the old texture.

In the following pictures, you can see that the taper created large stringy lines that don't really resemble the existing texture, Well, once we paint the new mud, it will mostly blend in and go away. If someone stands in front of the wall and intentionally examines the surface, they will certainly be able to see the patch, but for everyday life, it will look just fine.

Take special care along the edges where the new texture meets the old--smudge away the mud as you feather the edge. You want to avoid leaving any hard edges, since they will draw your eye.

The main goal is to level out the textures--then when we apply a couple coats of paint (Benjamin Moore's Aura yet again, in this case), they will blend into each other.

My brother Josh finished up painting the wall--it ended up matching perfectly.

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Questions

I have recently received a few questions about paint and paint-related things. And I have been happy to help people with their painting projects (or in the case of a gentleman yesterday, with identifying the antique pint cannisters he bought someplace--they were ceramic paint cans made by the International Paint Company, a company that produces yacht paint, of all things).

So please, bring on the paint questions! We want to help you out.

Also, if you're interested in our new furniture venture, contact me through the VideoPaintGuide. I recently carved and stained this Poplar rectangle to go with the Enchanted Dresser:

I made it to go with the dresser (which as you can see, is now in the Baby Room).

I also carved, stained, painted, and sealed this Fish Switch Plate Cover for the baby's room.

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The Enchanted Dresser

Clyde in the baby room.

With the baby girl on the way, my brother Josh and I carved, painted, stained, and sealed this unfinished pine dresser, transforming it into an Enchanted Dresser fit for a fairy princess (or a prince, if the doc is wrong!).

I stained the entire interior blue--I like the contrast with the green.

We're considering producing/selling more custom-finished furniture along this same line. If you're interested, contact me here.

A lone crow perched on a branch of the tree.

Josh carved and painted the dragon on this side.

I figured the dragonflies and flow could work for a boy or a girl.

The Clyde-View. He is such an exhibitionist.

Painting a Bedroom Blue Using Regal Select

Josh cutting in around the door.

Today we're painting a bedroom blue. As always, we're using Benjamin Moore Paint, although instead of our usual Aura, we're using Regal Select. It's another premium paint, and even though it costs a little less than Aura, it is still self-priming on most surfaces, and gave us good coverage.


We would have used Aura in this case, especially to ensure great hide with such a deep, bold color, but when we had the custom color matched, they only had Regal Select in quarts and not Aura. And since we started with Regal, we just decided to use it since the paint tech would have had to custom match the initial custom match in order to switch products!


We were both glad to try it out, though, since we rarely would ever choose to use a lesser quality paint than Aura (Aura always works really well for us, generally performing better than one could expect, in pretty much every situation). For us, using Aura is a sort of an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" kind of thing.

This is a color sample we brushed out on the wall. Notice how we
feathered the edges, leaving no thickness at all. Once the wall is
painted, you won't know we ever sampled anything.

We patched the holes in this wall using Vinyl Spackle--it dries fast and
sands smooth (these walls are smooth finish with no texture).

After laying out our drop cloths, patching holes, and caulking cracks, we
cut in the edges of the room with 3-inch brushes.

A bit blurry, but this is Josh cutting in the edge of the door. Notice that
he is not using tape to try and mask an edge.

All cut in and now we're ready to roll.

We did mask the baseboard since it is staying the same color. The
tape won't give us a perfect edge, but it helps keep most of the blue
off the light trim.

Josh rolling the walls.

The first coat is complete--note how well it covered the old color.
We applied a second coat, which deepened the color.

Regal Select.

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Antique Paint Cans and Equipment

This week we dropped in to see our dad at the University of Montana paint shop (where he is the foreman). Here are a few shots of the antique paint cans and tools he has collected over the last 30 years:

The UM stencil isn't old, of course.

Some old paint cans! I wish I had some of that sand finish for the baby room.

Note the 3 tiny detail brushes on top. 

Back when Dutch Boy was good paint. The one on the bottom is white
lead and weighs a LOT more than you would expect. Also,
apparently "Adehsium" is the stickiest thing on Earth!

 My dad has a lot more old paint stuff, which I need to get some pictures of. It's interesting to me to see how things change over time, especially marketing. Some of these cans have to be about a hundred years old, although I suspect most come from the 1920's or so. Most of the old brushes were made of horse hair (which is something you don't see in the US these days).

The giant brushes are wall brushes from before the days of rollers--you used
them to paint the entire wall from top to bottom, not just the edges like we do
today.

I wonder if "General Paint" is still around? I bet it's not! From the looks of the label, the soldier means business. That or he is just saluting the customer.

This one isn't so antique (maybe from the 60's?), but I think it's pretty damn funny.
"Tempo Buckeye" gets the job done. Or something.

Big Bucket is a pretty funny name, if you ask me.

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How to Use ARBORCOAT Waterborne Exterior Stain

Most people have already seen the ARBORCOAT video we created for Benjamin Moore, but I wanted to stick it on the blog as well so it will come up. And if you haven't seen it, please check it out, favorite it, share it, etc. Yes, I am a shameless promoter of the videos, although they are pretty damn good, if you ask me.

Josh in the rattlesnake house.

This is the master bedroom in the house we are working on in the rattlesnake. It's the same one that had the bear poop outside.

The paint is Benjamin Moore's Aura, as usual, in a custom red.

How to Clean a Paint Brush

This Brush Cleaning Video is our first independent video produced for the VideoPaintGuide. Hopefully it teaches you the basics about cleaning paint brushes. Please, if you like it, share links to the video and bug other people to check it out. Even more than the videos we produced so far for Benjamin Moore, we need to get hits for this video. The baby's future depends on it!

Check out our website at VideoPaintGuide.com