Prep for Success: Avoid Paint Failure and Increase Service Value

What’s the expiration date for paint?

If improperly applied, or applied after hasty or incomplete preparation, the lifespan of paint will be short. Painting contractors know that using quality products on properly prepared surfaces and using professional application techniques is the only way to get the most out of a coating.

Cut corners on any part of the process, and you risk paint failure and decrease the benefits that a coating offers for your structure.

Avoid Paint Failure: Choose Quality Products

Paint, like most material goods, comes in high and low grades. Cheaper paints cannot offer the same performance characteristics found in more expensive brands of paint. A painting contractor can help you select paints that have the right pigments, binders and additives that will give you the best performance for your building. The right high quality paint for the job is less likely to experience paint failure than a cheaper paint.

Avoid Paint Failure: Choose Proper Prep Techniques

Ask any professional painting contractor for the number one thing that helps prevent paint failure, and proper surface preparation is the most likely answer. The pros know that the time and effort you put into preparing the surface will directly affect that paint job’s performance. Cleaning, blasting and other procedures allow paint to bond with the surface.

Poor surface adhesion is behind a host of paint failure issues, such as peeling and flaking. By making sure that a surface is optimal for paint adhesion, a painting contractor is helping you avoid paint failure.

Avoid Paint Failure: Use Professional Application Techniques

Every paint manufacturer lists a coverage guideline for each of their products, which is usually expressed as the square footage covered per gallon at a set thickness of application. The coverage guidelines are what the manufacturer recommends to get the most benefit from the product. Failing to put those coverage guidelines into practice invites paint failure.

Professional painting contractors follow coverage guidelines because they know that cracking and flaking, a type of paint failure, can result from stretching a coat too thin. When a painting contractor is making an estimate, the square footage that is to be covered is factored into the costs of materials for the project. Cutting corners on the materials budget may result in serious problems with cracking and flaking later on.

On the other side of the application issue, laying it on too thick may result in a different type of paint failure called alligatoring. Another cause of this type of paint failure is not letting a coat dry properly before applying more paint. Consistent application and good dry times are needed to insure a quality finish.

Extend the lifespan of your coating by asking for suggestions to avoid paint failure at your facility. Your painting and coating contractor may have more advice to help your facility stay looking great.

As a result of the “green living” movement, Low or Zero VOC paints are becoming more mainstream. If you’re gearing up to paint your baby’s nursery, here’s what you should know about these new paint alternatives.

Traditional Paints
If you’ve ever painted a room in the past with traditional paint, you probably had to open the windows because of the strong odor. Traditional paints contain volatile organic compounds also known as VOCs. VOCs are comprised of a variety of chemicals that can adversely affect your health. In fact, according to The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), VOCs can trigger eye, nose and throat irritations, headaches, nausea, and a loss of coordination. Significant exposure may even lead to problems with the kidney, liver and central nervous system.

Many people mistakenly believe that once their paint is dry and the smell is gone, the chemicals are too. However VOCs tend to concentrate indoors and may persist in the air long after painting is finished. To decrease this risk, consider choosing a non toxic paint for the nursery and other rooms in your home as well. There are many benefits to using non toxic paints including:

• Easier clean-up with soap and water
• Easier disposal options
• Less odor during application and usually no odor once the paint is dry
• A shorter waiting period to safely occupy the room
• Significant reduction in toxins released into the air

Non toxic or Natural Paints
These paints are produced by a variety of manufacturers and come in several options. Many of the paints are now available at mainstream home improvement stores as well as at local specialty paint stores. As with many eco-friendly products, there are no official federal guidelines regarding labeling, so VOC standards may vary by manufacturer. Consult the paint labels or ask your in-store paint specialist for clarification if you have questions. You can also look for paints that have Green Seal certifications.

Types of Non toxic Paints

Low VOC: These paints use water instead of petroleum to carry the paint. To be considered Low VOC, a paint may only contain 250 grams of VOC per liter. Likewise, varnishes are limited to 380 grams of VOC per liter. However, many reputable paint companies offer paints with even lower VOC levels. Look for Green Seal Certifications.

Zero VOC: These paints still contain VOCs but are limited to less than 5 grams of VOC per liter.

Natural Paints: These safe paints are made solely from natural ingredients, including substances like water, clay, chalk, plant dyes, natural latex and even milk and beeswax. You can search for natural paints online.

Decorating a baby nursery can be a loving way to prepare for your newborn’s arrival. If your plans involve painting the walls, choosing non toxic or natural paints is great way to reduce potential household toxins and give your precious baby the gift of healthy indoor air.

Painting contractors know that paint and coatings play a crucial role in the green building trend sweeping the nation today. Because of the decline in construction brought about by the financial crisis, the green building idea is taking root and getting wider attention from construction stakeholders who not only appreciate a non-polluting and environment-friendly method of construction, but also welcome the significant cost reductions to construction projects.

The construction industry’s interest in green building projects challenges paint manufacturers and their raw material suppliers to ingeniously produce environment-friendly paint products and materials that comply with environment standards without sacrificing quality performance. The products are now populating the market, ready to be used by painting contractors in many facility projects.

Environment-Friendly Paints and Coatings

The result of paint manufacturers’ paint reformulation efforts is apparent in the wide array of green paints that painting contractors can chose from. One product is a result of many years of polymer research leading to a new and improved latex paint that eliminates the use of toxic solvents. Without the inclusion of such harmful solvents, air quality is maintained during and after painting application projects, protecting painting contractors and building tenants at the same time.

The presence of VOCs or volatile organic compounds is also a major environmental problem in regular paints. VOCs are harmful materials to the environment, polluting the air and causing health risks to humans. To address this problem, paint manufacturers make it one of their stringent goals to develop new products that contain little to zero VOCs.

Another coating innovation is the infusion of water-repellent characteristics to external coatings, resulting in a “self-cleaning” feature wherein dirt and water particles simply slide off the painted surfaces, leaving the building surface clean and impervious to soiling and the effects of the weather. The building surface remains dry and maintains its color over longer periods of time.

Green Raw Materials

Raw material suppliers have also been busy researching and formulating green materials. A new line of emulsion polymers, for instance, help paint manufacturers develop low-VOC and low-odor paints without the aid of detrimental coalescents.

As with paint manufacturers, raw material suppliers are determined to lower VOC in paints, hence a wide variation of low-VOC raw materials have emerged, from zero-formaldehyde solutions and neutral-PH wet-state preservatives, to multi-purpose additives and dry films that meet the standards for green paints.

Suppliers take VOC compliance to innovative levels with green ingredients designed for all types of coating applications, as well as shorten the application and drying time of paints, to the benefit of painting contractors and building residents. Biocidal products that contain almost zero organic solvents are also another area of enhancement, allowing paint to be manufactured more safely and easier to apply by painting contractors.

Green Building from Green Paint

Almost-zero VOC solutions that are less-harmful during paint manufacturing, application, and post-application are of paramount importance not only to paint manufacturers and raw material suppliers, but also to painting contractors, building owners and tenants. Even minute traces of VOCs must have no place in paint solutions to comply with green standards and ensure the building’s viability and sustainability.

The demand for green buildings is driving painting contractors to use only green paints and coatings. In response, paint manufacturers and their suppliers develop eco-friendly paints made out of environmentally-safe materials. These layered responses allow for a successful implementation of the green building trend to most commercial and residential facilities in the country.

Painting a room can be a time consuming and expensive task; painting a house amplifies the complexity and cost of the task several times. The claim that the Point â??n Paint can actually reduce both the time needed and the cost of painting might seem to be a big one, but there are several ways that the system can help you to save time and money when painting. Here are just a few of the ways that the system can help you cut your costs and increase the speed with which you finish painting so that you can get back to doing the things that you want to do.

Less Paint Waste

Painting can be a messy process, and paint generally is not cheap. When using rollers and brushes, a significant amount of paint generally has to be thrown away either because it has dried out in the try, gotten spilled onto drop cloths, or was simply left over in a brush or roller when it was cleaned up. The Point â??n Paint system reduces a significant amount of this waste by letting you use only a small amount of paint at a time in order to get all of your painting done. The refill tray is designed in such a way that it helps the paint in it to stay in a liquid form longer, letting you pour any unused paint back into the can when you are finished for the day. Not only that, but the tray is also designed to make it harder to tip over to greatly reduce the chance of spilling paint onto the floor.

Fewer Accessories Needed

If you are painting with traditional painting supplies then you likely have a roller with its tray to let you paint the larger portions of the room as well as one or more brushes for corners and edges. The brushes will need a separate paint container or a can that they can be dipped in, and painterâ??s tape will be required in order to let you paint around outlets, windows, and other objects in the wall without getting paint all over them. Not only do all of these components cost money, but the time that it takes to switch from one to another can really add up. The Point â??n Paint is essentially an all-in-one system, with the painting pads it uses being designed so that you can do perfect edging and corners even without the use of painterâ??s tape. The same pads are also able to paint the larger portions of walls with ease.

Faster Refilling

Refilling a roller or brush only takes a few moments, but those few moments generally require several steps in order to be successful and avoid drips or runs. The roller has to be rolled through the paint in order to get an even coating and then must be rolled on the shallow part of the tray to get rid of excess paint. Brushes need to be dipped and then brushed against the edge of the paint can in order to remove as much of the extra paint in the bristles as possible. The Point â??n Paint on the other hand simply needs to be rolled over the wheel in the middle of its painting tray; this fills the pad with paint and lets you get right to painting with no additional steps.

Ease of Application

When using a roller, the same area often has to be gone over several times in order to get an even coat. Brushes are even worse, since you have to contend with brush strokes that can be all but impossible to get rid of at times. The Point â??n Paint lets you apply paint in an even coat on the first try, the pad smoothing it out even as it is applied. You will spend a significantly smaller amount of time painting, often finishing up a room that would otherwise take a day in around an hour or so. Any convenience that can be taken advantage of while painting should absolutely be utilized; painting can be an extremely messy and difficult process. The Point n Paint painting system can help.

Enter the Point ‘n Paint painting system to solve all of these painting problems. The Point ‘n Paint system was designed to eliminate some of the most common problems associated with painting, combining several different innovations into a single easy-to-use product. To help you see how the Point ‘n Paint system can serve you better than more traditional painting solutions, here are some comparisons of the Point ‘n Paint system and other tools that you might use when painting indoors or out.

Traditional Brushes

The most common painting apparatus, paint brushes come in a variety of sizes and materials. Regardless of the type of paint brush used, however, all brushes seem to have the same general problems. It can be easy for a brush to get too much paint in it, resulting in runs and globs of paint, and if you are not careful a sudden movement can send splatters of paint onto surfaces that you did not want to get paint on. They can also be hard to control when trying to paint corners, meaning that every surface that does not need to be painted will have to have a lot of painter’s tape applied to it in order to protect it from the brush. Then, of course, there are the brush strokes that can be very difficult to avoid no matter what type of brush you are using.

The Point ‘n Paint system, on the other hand, uses ergonomically-contoured pads as a paint delivery system. These pads release an even amount of paint across the surface that you are trying to paint, and the shape of the pads allow you to access corners and edges with ease without the fear of getting paint everywhere. Because of the smooth application created by the pads, brush strokes are a thing of the past.

Paint Rollers

Providing a smoother layer of paint than brushes, rollers are preferred for covering large portions of walls, ceilings, and other surfaces. The main problems associated with rollers are that it can be difficult to get the roller evenly coated with paint (causing uneven application), the trays used with rollers can be easy to knock over (causing nasty paint spills), and it is impossible to use a roller to paint edges and corners. While rollers do not duplicate brush strokes, many roller heads will begin to slide off of the roller while painting which can result in drips and even scratches on the surface that is being painted.

Using the Point ‘n Paint system can eliminate this problem. The Point n’ Paint tray is designed in such a way that it is not likely to tip over; and features a wheel in the middle of it to make loading your Point ‘n Paint pads much easier than loading a paint roller. The pad does not rotate so you will not have to worry about uneven coverage, and you can easily access corners and edges thanks to the shape of the pads. Since the pad is secured into the handle, you will never have to worry about it trying to come loose in the middle of painting.

Spraying Systems

Spraying systems were introduced as a way to get past the problems caused by brushes and rollers, but they are not without problems of their own. Edging is possible with spraying systems, but require either the liberal use of tape (and often poster board or other large materials) or additional tools which have to be held in place to avoid getting sprayed paint all over other surfaces. Additionally, a protective mask needs to be worn when using a spraying system inside to keep you from inhaling the sprayed paint mist.

You can avoid the mess and potential danger of spraying systems by using the Point ‘n Paint system. The paint stays in liquid form the entire time, and you have complete control over where the paint is applied. While painter’s tape can still be used as added protection, you have enough control over the application of the paint that you don’t have to worry about paint getting anywhere other than where you want.

Also remember that paints come in different finishes and the finish you choose will greatly affect how the room is going to look. Paint finishes come in flat which doesn’t have a shine, egg shell, which is slightly shinier, semi gloss which is shinier yet and then gloss which is very shinny. Using paint with a shinier finish will be much easier to keep clean. A semi gloss to a gloss finish would be best for rooms that are lived in quite a bit like the living room and kitchen or for kids rooms.

You should always sand down your walls before painting to smooth them out. If you have never done this before you may think it is just a waste of time and want to get right to painting. However, you really should continue to read this article before you go running off to paint that room. You will make certain that your paint job job will look smooth and free of rough spots by sanding down the walls before painting. Sanding the walls before you begin to paint will give them a nice smooth finish.

Your next step would be to prime the walls after they have been sanded down and dusted off of all the sanding particles. Many people decide to skip this step in order to save them time and money but it is important to do this just like it is sanding because the results will show when you are finished. Your paint job will look so much better if the walls were primed before the painting was done. Primers start out white but you can ask the person at the desk in the paint center to change the color for you based on the color you plan to use for the room.

Once you have the walls primed, you can begin painting by cutting in the ceiling. By this I mean you will want to outline the area in which you are going to paint with a border of the paint you are using. To do this you will need a chiseled paintbrush that is about two to three inches. A chiseled brush is not the same as a regular brush because it is not cut straight instead the bristles on one side of the brush are longer than those on the other side of the brush. Make about a three inch border around the area you want to paint.

Now would be the best time to begin painting the ceiling. To begin painting you will need to use a painting tray or have a 5 gallon bucket. It will be easier to use a paint tray rather than a bucket when painting a smaller room or area. The bucket is best when you are painting a large area. If you are using the tray just add a bit of paint to the deeper side and dip your roller into it. After dipping your roller into the paint you will want to roll it against the slanted side of the tray, if you are using a bucket make sure you have a paint screen to roll the roller on to remove the excess paint from the roller. You want your roller to be completely saturated with paint but not to the point where it is dripping.

After completing the ceiling you can paint the walls. You want to start with cutting in the edges of the walls just like you did for the ceiling. Then one at a time just fill in the open areas. Once the ceiling and walls are complete you will want to take care of the doors and the woodwork. Start by applying painter tape around the area you are going to paint, this will allow you to make straight lines and keep the paint off your newly painted walls and ceiling. Then just apply the paint lightly with long brush strokes.

By following the steps that I have outlined here the job may make take you somewhat longer, but I guarantee that you will be much more satisfied with the result. Have fun and let me know how it turned out.

There are three broad steps to doing your floor project: planning and preparation, repairing, and applying the coating. This article is the first in a three part series, and deals with planning and preparation.

General guidelines for applying an epoxy coating to your floor:

1. Do no harm.
2. Investing in prep produces the best value, (cost divided by years of service).
3. Let the chemicals and equipment do the work.
4. What can go wrong, will go wrong, unless you think ahead.
5. Technique is what separates mortals from Rembrandts.
6. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Now let’s get started with tips on how to plan your job and prepare your floor.

1. Plan the job.
2. Stick your coating to something that is not going to move
3. The better the tools, the less work you have to do.
4. Removing loose concrete is as important as removing dirt
5. Different types of dirt require different cleaners
6. “Shocking” the floor can help free dirt and contaminants.
7. Some things must be abraded off.
8. Don’t blow bubbles through your finish
9. There is only one way to remove gum
10. Asphalt bleeds
11. If you coat over things that move, your floor may move
12. Vacuum out those holes
13. Gravity is unforgiving

. Once you prep your floor, anything in the air will eventually end up as dirt on your floor. So don’t wait too long to do your coatings. Bugs, leaves, dust, and lint can eventually compromise the quality of the job you end up with.. Water settles in floor cracks and holes. If you vacuum them out or blot them with a rag, you will not have the problem of unexpected delays due to finding water still in your floor after the surface has dried.
. Adhesives are often a problem to remove on floors. But if you leave the adhesive, your coating is like an eggshell. A hard exterior with a soft interior will often let the shell crack and peal away.
. If you use a solvent-based floor coating and coat over any asphalt spots, the solvents will make the asphalt bleed into your finish spoiling the color. Use a scraper to remove any asphalt. Then follow with some degreaser or mineral spirits.
. Modern gum is actually synthetic rubber and is not affected by cleaners or most solvents. Scraping is the most common method of removing gum but a 190-degree hot water jet works fast if you have one.
. Gases often come up through your porous concrete floor. Methane and radon gas are very common under concrete slabs and move their way through the concrete causing some bubbles in the finish. But most often bubbles are caused by the chemical reaction still going on between your cleaners and the floor. One or two good scrub rinses are needed to help avoid generating gas bubbles in your floor.
Gum, adhesive, asphalt, some paints, concrete splatters, silicone sprays from Rain X, and Tire Shine are just some of the blemishes that you may need to scrape or grind off by hand when preparing a floor.
When you do your laundry you put your shirt in the wash and it is probably at a pH of 6.5 or 7. Then you add your detergent, which may bring the pH up to 8 or 8.5. That pH change is part of what make the dirt particles want to let go of the fabric. When we do floors, we shock the floor by bringing the pH up to 12 and then hitting it with the acidic cleaner dropping the pH to 5.5 or so. That really helps make concrete particles that are about to let to, let go.
. If one cleaner worked for everything there would only be one cleaner sold. But some dirt and contaminants, like fats and oils, respond to alkaline-type cleaners and some dirt and contaminants, like minerals, rust and concrete respond, to acidic-type cleaners. If alkaline and acidic are mixed they cancel each other out to neutral, so two separate cleanings are needed for your concrete floor, one alkaline cleaning and one acidic, followed by a good scrub rinse to stop the chemical action.
. If you walk over concrete with your socks on, you will usually see that they get all dusty. That’s because the concrete is constantly deteriorating and breaking away. Your preparation should leave only concrete that is well attached, so aggressive scrubbing is a must.
Renting power scrubbers, walk-behind vacuums, double-bladed squeegees, and long-handled scrapers are all multipliers that reduce your work and increase your performance. You can try to do without lots of fancy tools, but you might have to ask yourself, will you stop your work earlier than you should because it’s just too much work.
. Remember that a floor that has 3000 lb. or more going over it every day needs much better adhesion than a wall that may get brushed by an elbow occasionally. Stick your coating to something that is not going to move.
Save trips to the store and costly delays by getting everything you need ready before the job starts. One quick step would be to go to a website like www.concrete-floor-coatings.com for a free cost analysis which will list everything you need to do your job, including step by step instructions.

Remember, “Life imitates Star Trek.” You may begin to notice in the future that virtually every floor in the galaxy seems to have a flow-coated, two-part coating on it. I am seeing fewer and fewer new wood floors, linoleum, or oriental rugs. How about you?

Follow the rules and your job will turn out with the great look you want.

Thousands of millions of dollars annually are spent for it; Canadians alone lay out almost 200 million dollars a year for paint. In Canada more than 150 paint plants produce this colorful coating. And in the United States over 635,000,000 gallons of paint are sold by manufacturers each year. That is enough paint to cover some 11,400 square miles, or an area almost the size of the Netherlands!

Thousands of Years of Use

The use of paint is not of recent origin. Ancient peoples, particularly the Egyptians, realized that certain pigments found in the soil could be mixed with a liquid and applied to their buildings. For example, colorful reds and yellows were obtained by mixing ochers with water.

Also, pigments were imported from other countries to supplement those found in the Egyptian soil. From the madder roots, which were imported from India, various shades of red, violet and brown were prepared. And from the indigo plant a deep blue color was produced.

Other civilizations were quick to copy the techniques of paint making developed by the Egyptians. Roman artists made use of the same colors and, with few exceptions, the same methods of producing them. However, after the fall of the Roman Empire of the West in 476 C.E. the art of making paints virtually disappeared.

It was near the end of the Middle Ages that the use of paint for decorative and protective purposes began its reemergence in England. At first paints were used chiefly on churches. Then they were used on public buildings and the houses of the wealthy. Since paint was expensive to produce, it was a mark of social distinction to have one’s dwelling painted.

It was not until the 1700’s that paint was made commercially by a few persons who went into the business in the United States and Europe. These early manufacturers produced only the materials for paint; the painter was required to do his own mixing and formulating. It was not until 1867 that prepared paints were first marketed. The development in the late 1800’s of new machines for grinding and mixing enabled paint manufacturers to turn out large volumes of paint, and soon paint making entered an era of rapid development.

The Ingredients

It is estimated now that most paint manufacturers carry an inventory of almost 1,000 different items. Perhaps as many as 500 of these are in daily use. Great strides have been made in the development of new paints. Indeed, not long ago a popular magazine observed: “Eighty-five percent of the paints on sale today didn’t even exist five years ago.” Yet, paint raw materials might be classified into four main groups:Pigments,vehicles,solvents or thinners and additives.

Pigments are the substances that give color and opacity to paint coatings. The ancients frequently used vegetable and animal matter to color their paints, but these are of little importance in paint making today. Still used, however, are earth pigments, called natural or mineral pigments. These are obtained from certain earths that are mined, finely ground and refined. But the most commonly used pigments today are chemical ones.

The vehicle is that part of the paint that carries the pigment. It may consist of oils or varnishes. Drying oils that are used in paint vehicles have the property of converting from a liquid to a solid state when exposed to the oxygen of the air. The paint vehicle thus dries and hardens when it contacts the air. The resulting hard film holds the pigment on the painted surface.

Perhaps the most common thinners for paint are either water or turpentine. These are added to thin the paint to the proper viscosity or thickness for easy spreading on a surface. Although thinners, too, might be considered part of the vehicle, they function somewhat differently in a paint. They begin to evaporate after application of the paint on a surface, leaving the film-forming material exposed for permanent drying.

Paint additives often include compounds of lead, manganese or cobalt. These accelerate the drying of the paint.

How Paint Is Made

Paint is basically a dispersion of colored pigments in a vehicle or liquid medium. The paint maker prepares a rather heavy paste by mixing together dry pigments and a portion of the vehicle. This process might be compared with what a housewife does when she mixes ingredients with her mechanical mixer, perhaps in preparing cake batter. In paint making the mixing cycle is continued until a fluid but somewhat lumpy paste is formed.

The next step requires what is known as grinding. A roller mill of steel cylinders that rotate against each other is frequently used for this. The purpose of the grinding is to pull the pigment particles apart so that each particle will be coated by the resinous vehicle. Another type of mill consists of a revolving drum partly filled with steel balls. By constantly revolving for many hours, the steel balls are able to disperse the pigment particles throughout the vehicle.

After the grinding process, the balance of the vehicle as well as the solvent thinners are added. Also, driers often are added at this time. But when the enclosed steel-ball mill is used, all ingredients generally are included from the beginning. Of course, with the development of water-base paints new types of equipment are used for dispersing pigments and liquids. Tinting of the batch comes next, adding just the proper amount of color to give the batch the exact shade desired. Finally, the paint is moved to automatic machines that fill, cover and code the containers.

The Colors to Use

Since all of us enjoy pleasant surroundings, it will be of interest to consider how you might add pleasantness to your home by employing that colorful coating—paint. Home decorators usually choose colors that will complement other articles in a room, such as those in furniture, rugs or draperies.

Light colors in a small room will create an impression of size, a point to remember when decorating apartments. A continuous flow of neutral tints through several rooms adds an air of spaciousness, inviting one to accent these tints with colorful rugs, cushions or pictures. Keep in mind, though, that an excessive number of colors in any one room can give a cluttered look.

Here are additional helpful hints: Tints of yellow, peach and rose are warm colors. They create a comfortable and mellow charm in rooms facing north and east. Greens and blues in their pastel tones are pages from the marvelous creation around us. One can just feel the cool, relaxing atmosphere imparted by these colors in rooms facing south and west. Rich, bright colors, such as reds and oranges, are exciting colors. But a word of caution. One might tire of them easily. They have a stimulating effect, often reflecting youthful personality or that of one who likes change. Therefore, they often can be suited to the bedrooms of children.

When choosing colors, remember that when a paint is spread over a large area it will appear darker than it does on a small color sample. Therefore, select a lighter shade and it will probably be the color you desire when it is applied to a wall. Also, since colors change under artificial light, it is wise to observe color samples both in daylight and in night light.

Selecting the Proper Coating

Paint is made in a number of finishes, ranging from a high gloss to a flat finish. Generally a low gloss or flat finish will give the most pleasing appearance on a large surface. Flat paints have a greater proportion of pigment to binder, hence they have a rougher finish that scatters the light in all directions. Thus, fewer surface irregularities will show when using a flat paint. However, flat finishes have the shortcoming of being more subject to soiling, and are more difficult to clean.

Thus, if frequent cleaning is necessary, as in a kitchen, bathroom, hallway, or in cupboards and on wood trim, it would be practical to apply a semigloss or highgloss paint. Semigloss would seem to be a compromise that will afford ease of cleaning and will not reflect too many surface imperfections.

In living rooms and bedrooms, a pleasing appearance often overshadows serviceability. Hence a home decorator might choose a flat finish. In the closets, though, where there might be a tendency to mark up the walls, a semigloss paint will make for easier cleaning and a brighter appearance. But since a flat paint has more hiding power and thus often requires but one coat, this is something to consider if time and cost are factors.