How To Paint Practically Anything

Amanda Lecky Editor, Home Publications LAST SUMMER my kids went off to camp and I began a career as a not-so-professional painter. I had some bold plans for the time they were away: First, I’d  nish the porchpainting project my husband and I had begun in the spring. Then, I’d transform my two sons’ bright, chaotic, little-boy bedrooms into sleeker spaces better suited to their teenage selves. Finally, I’d enjoy the fruits of my labor until the boys came home. But you know what they say about the best-laid plans, right? I’ll give you the happy ending  rst: I got all three projects done, and we love the results. But the many mistakes I made along the way cost me time and, nearly, my sanity. So here’s my expert advice…

1. We’ve been testing paint for a long time—since 1950. We estimate that we’ve bought enough paint to cover 3,500_houses inside and out. 2. In any given year we perform about 4,000 tests on about 250 gallons of paints and stains to update our ratings. 3. We cover about 90 percent of the retail market, so you’ll have no trouble _inding the products we recommend. 4. We base our tests on the things that matter to our readers, like how well an interior paint will cover what’s already on the wall and how long an exterior paint will last. 5. Our labs are out_itted with special machines to simulate everyday paint challenges such as repeated scrubbing and ultraviolet-light exposure. 6. We accept no ads and no free samples, so all…

Of course you want to choose colors you love for your house, but if you think you might sell within a few years, the following information might interest you. Zillow Digs, part of the Zillow online real estate marketplace, analyzed photos of 50,000 homes from around the country to see how interior paint colors impacted the eventual sales price. Their ¡indings, below, are surprising (who knew how much people disliked terra-cotta!). Still, the variables are fairly small in proportion to the price of a house. So don’t worry if you don’t want a tan bathroom—but you might want to consider painting your kitchen yellow. FAN FAVORITE Paint for Your Own Fixer-Upper You don’t need to have Joanna Gaines renovate your home to get a little piece of the style she…

If your love a_air with purple ended in 7th grade, get ready for a new romance. This year, the color has risen to the top of the home trend forecasts, declared the “color of the year” for 2017 by three di_erent paint companies. Why purple, and why such a dramatic departure from last year’s hot color, white? The experts seem somewhat surprised at their own choice. “Even though purple is one of the least-selected colors across all the PPG brands, our entire global color team aligned and saw it as the most important home color for 2017,” says Dee Schlotter, senior color marketing manager for PPG’s Olympic Paint. She links the rise of purple—for example, Olympic’s color of the year, “Cloudberry”—to a renewed fascination with space, and to the focus…

Caleb Anderson Drake/Anderson, New York City drakeanderson.com When I’m working on a project or a room, I often start with a mood. We might have an image that evokes a feeling, or the client might know how he or she wants to feel in the space. From there, we start to build the palette, pulling in fabrics, carpets, di. erent materials. Then we’ll pick the paint color. Very occasionally we’ll have a speci.ic concept or idea for a color we want on a wall, or a door, and we’ll start there, but usually the paint colors come last. An example of a room created around a mood was a showhouse bedroom my partner Jamie Drake and I designed. We wanted it to be a really soothing retreat, and we achieved that…

There’s a good reason that whites and neutrals are top sellers. Transforming your rooms with paint can be intimidating if you’re afraid of making a mistake with color. To help you through the process, we asked some color experts for their inside secrets for choosing a palette that will t your personal style—and bring out your home’s best features. They shared a variety of easy-to-adapt techniques for picking colors. But perhaps the best advice of all is the simplest. “Have fun,” says Leslie Harrington, a color strategist. “Take a risk. The worst that will happen if you make a mistake is that you’ll have to repaint.” Look for Inspiration We surround ourselves with color every day, from the clothes we wear to the places we visit to the items we…