Barb thought it might be a good idea to document the paint colors and techniques we’re using, and what better place to do that than the blog? We’re doing a 3-coat process–sealer, primer, and color.
The sealer we’re using on the new drywall is a product called SuperHide. It keeps the primer from getting sucked into the bare wallboard. We normally wouldn’t need a sealer on the old plaster since it has already been painted, but the people who lived in the house for ~55 years before us smoked. A lot! Click on the photo below for a higher resolution, if you dare…
We’re using Zinsser 1-2-3 to seal the nicotine into the old plaster and keep it from staining our new paint. (Kind of gross to think of it that way. Makes me want to tear out all the old plaster, but that’s impractical.)
Once the sealer has dried, we’re applying the primer. For the walls, we had our paint supplier add some tint to the primer, so that it’s easy to distinguish the primer from the sealer. (Otherwise we’d be painting white-on-white.) Since our ceiling color is almost white, we can’t tint the ceiling primer.
The final step is the color coat. We’re using Aura paint throughout the house. It’s pretty expensive but well worth it! We first tried the Aura line when we painted our living room last year. We like it because:
- One-coat coverage — No second color coat (and cleanup!) required.
- Bullet-proof touchup — If we miss a spot, we just paint it later. Once the patch is dry, it blends in perfectly with the rest of the wall/ceiling.
- Coordinated palette — I don’t know how to explain this, but all the Aura colors “go” with each other.
We’re getting all our paint from Pryde’s Paint and Paper. (Annoying web site, but the staff is excellent!) This is one of the few places where we had to present any documentation in order to qualify for a contractor’s discount, but the discount is absolutely worth the effort. Pryde’s regular prices are a bit steep, especially for the high-grade paint and primers we’re using, while the discounted prices are competitive with Home Depot. (And of course, Home Depot’s best paint can’t hold a candle to the stuff we’re buying from Pryde.)
Here are the colors we’re using. Sadly, I can’t just link directly to the color pallet on the Aura site, so the best I can do is give the color name below:
- Ceilings (whole house) — Sonnet
- Trim (whole house) — Mascarpone
- Living room — Glacial Till
- Entry & hallway — Truffle
- Game room — Soleil
- Great room — Croquet
- Kitchen & nook — Solitude
- Laundry/utility room — Buttered Yam
- Bathroom — Fiji
