Choosing The Right Interior Paint

Choosing the right interior paint and color is critical and impacts the decoration of your home.

Interior paints may be formulated from oil-based alkyd or water-based latex, but most of the paint available today is latex. Experts prefer latex paint and find it appropriate for most painting jobs. Latex paint has many advantages to other types of paint.

Choose Latex

First of all, latex paint glides on smooth and sticks to just about every surface. It resists chipping and cracking, doesn't peel or blister, and never turns powdery. Latex color also doesn't fade with time.

There are other advantages to latex paint. There's much less odor with latex as opposed to the oil-based paints. Latex is lighter, avoiding the problem of brush drag. Furthermore, latex paint dries fast—from 1-6 hours. That means you can put on a second coat the same day. Cleanup is easier, too. Soap and water takes off all but the heaviest grime from latex-painted surfaces. 

Today, there is also a heavy trend toward using paints that are kind to the environment. Demand has created a supply of paints that are low-odor and contain few or no VOC's (volatile organic compounds). VOC's are considered to be a possible health hazard, since they diminish air quality and emit breathable gas when paints containing these compounds are applied. The fumes created by VOC-containing paints can cause dizziness, nausea, and headaches, along with eye and throat irritation. Low-odor and low or no-VOC paints are more expensive than other interior paints but there is no doubt that these make for more pleasant painting and are just as effective as regular latex paint.

Best Paint

Professional opinion states that it's worth your while to buy the best quality interior paint within your budget. Any paint can give you top looks once the job is completed, but the difference between premium and budget brands is found in the ease with which you can accomplish your painting tasks. For this reason, most professional painters and contractors make a point of refusing to use the budget brands of paint such as those found at large major retail shops. They feel that these paints don't offer the same coverage as the premium paints, leading to more preparatory work and extra coats to achieve the same look. These factors lead to a greater time investment for paint jobs that take longer to complete plus any money saved by scrimping on paint quality is offset by higher labor costs.

As a homeowner, you may not mind if your paint job takes a bit longer to complete, but shelling out for extra paint and paying for more hours of labor may not be worth the money you thought you'd saved in the first place on that budget paint.