As you likely remember I prepared my house for sale. There were numerous upgrades we put in but the one job we did is the most time consuming as well as providing the most $ROI.
We painted the entire house...well I painted the entire house. Since we were selling I went the cheap route and colour matched a Benji colour using Behr.
What a disaster! The computers can never get the same formula even over 3 cans. Home Depot's paint manager gave me the low down:
- After a product (ex. latex flat emulsion base white) goes on the big box shelf the paint manufacturers update the product on an ongoing basis. Therefore you can get a can with an 'older' (last months) formula and a can of the 'new' formula. The cans will look exactly alike; the manufacturers have simply 'tweaked' the formula which will alter the colour outcome!
- Each manufacturer has their own 'white' base to which colour is added. So when you take a Benji or Restoration Hardware or C2 sample in to colour match you will never get the same...because they are formulated using a different white base.
- The colour matching done at the big boxes are not done by the eye only the computer. At least at specialty paint stores when they colour match they will take the computers 'match' and then tweak till they feel it is right. This can take a whole day of them playing around, a few hours or few minutes. If you listen to them as they do it you will find out how complex the C2 colours are to colour match!
Here is what happened when I tried to touch up some spots with a different can of paint which was purchased at the same time as the original wall colour:
BTW, I went back 3 times trying to get the colour fixed...many many cans later I actually spoke with a paint manager. I got my money back for the original paints.
I will never again colour match at a big box.
I wish I could say I'll never colour match again but C2 is to damn far away...so Abernathy's in Bowmanville will be doing my colour matching of C2 they take their time and will not release the paint till it is a match!
However, and the point to all this rambling: I used Ben Moore's Aura paint. Despite the cost of a gallon of Aura you actually use much less than you would of the big box paints.
- max 2 coats with Aura (just like C2)
- self-priming (OMG!!!)
New drywall or patched? Just paint it one coat with Aura and you are done.
I had already done 2 coats everywhere...then the touch up fiasco and then repainting in Aura. Thankfully I only had to do 1 coat and no priming any patches!
Now that is a lot of time to relax and enjoy the job!
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