With a 2 year old in the home(well, next week he’ll be two), my wife and I are a bit overprotective of what chemicals we use or have laying around. Sometimes i curse the internet for ruining a “good thing” by informing us as to how bad it really is… hehe
My wife decided she wanted to repaint two bedrooms in our home. She did the research and decided she wanted a paint with NO volatile organic compounds — commonly known as VOCs — harmful chemicals that contribute to poor air quality.
Her research led her to three different paints. Fresh Aire, being the least expensive at $35.00 p/gallon. There was another two she had narrowed it down to, one wasn’t sold locally(within 20 miles), and the other was $55.00 p/gallon.
I grew up in a hardware store, and have mixed more gallons of paint than i care to admit. In the back of my mind I was trying to figure out how this company mixed these colors. I mean, if you add tint with VOC’s to color the paint, aren’t you in fact back to square one with a VOC paint?!? Fresh Aire has a limited number of colors(65 colors available), but luckily we found 3-5 we liked. Surely, they wouldn’t have 4 singular gallons of each color waiting for us to order(Note:Paint is generally sold in a box of 4 single gallons to stores). Well, they didnt have 260 gallons of paint on their shelves, and I wont be calling you Shirley.
When we arrived at Home Depot, we gave the “mixer” our sample of choice and he proceeded to head over to the shelf, pull a gallon of paint and then open a cupboard and pull out an oversized metallic-looking baggie. My wife and I watched in curiosity as he opened the metallic baggie, and pulled out a clear baggie, with what I took to be the tint. He then throws the clear baggie into the paint, seals the paint can up and puts it on the shaker…. I WAS IN AWE!!!! YES, HE PUT THE BAGGIE AND ALL ITS’ CONTENTS IN THE PAINT… He didn’t open the baggie and pour the tint into the paint, he put the baggie and its’ contents into the paint… My wife and I looked at each other in dazed confusion… My wife even snuck around the corner and snuck a baggie out of the cupboard to read, and make sure this guy wasnt a dufus… The description on the baggie wasn’t very clear, so we decided we would just wait and see…. Sure enough, the paint came out the right color, and sure enough my wife made me go home and dip a paint stick into the paint about 9 times to see if i could come up with some fragments of the burst open baggie… NONE WERE FOUND!!!!
okay, enough with the cool mixing techniques…. On to the review… Well, actually, let me remind people that I have rehabbed MANY homes, and have painted more rooms and bedrooms than I CARE to remember… I know how to paint, and know what is good paint… With that said, On To The REVIEW!!!!!
I have to say I am not impressed with the paint.. To be brief: It took multiple coats to cover the walls. There was a smell, and it’s pretty darn expensive($35.00 p/gallon), and I just wasn’t impressed… Also, it may be a coincidence, but one of my dogs’ puked twice over the two days we were painting. That dog rarely, if ever, pukes, and he isn’t the type of dog that would get into the paint… Again, it could be a coincidence, but I digress..
I guess if I wanted to give the paint the benefit of the doubt, I could tell you the walls currently in place haven’t been painted in 10+ years. I could also tell you that we didn’t clean the walls, other than a light dusting to get rid of the minor cobwebs. I could tell you all of that, but then i could also tell you that i didn’t have this trouble in the other rooms of the house we used the “other” paints on….
I could also tell you that we had windows opened, as always when painting, and that the smell cleared up in 2-3 hours, and my “other” paints would have taken longer than that to clear out the smell. I could also say that this paint supposedly won’t have the outgassing that my “other” paint has… I could also say that my wife made my son stay in a totally different part of the house cause she was that offended by the smell of this paint….
Oh well, I digress.. I really didn’t care one way or the other about the idea of using this paint.. Sure i wasn’t happy about paying $35.00 p/gallon, but I didn’t go into this project with ill will towards the product. In the grand scheme of things, what makes my wife happy, makes me happy, so i really didn’t care what we paid. I think if we had it to do over again, my wife would make me buy the $55.00 p/gallon Benjamin Moore paint. So I got that going for me on our next painting project in my house(thank god we only have a bathroom and hallway left to paint). Also, I am going to play the idiot savant on our next rehab and pay someone else to do the work and use the “other” paint…
PS – Speaking of outgassing, and “sick house syndrome”.. It’s my opinion(read: not a fact), A lot of the bad air in a home can be cleared up by opening the windows and doors of your house 2-3 days during each of the 4 seasons… That lets your house get rid of the bad, and take in the good. Note: I heard this little tip from a tree hugging hippy oriental rug restorer. She handles rug restoration for major museums, and is quite boisterous about how bad we are to mother earth… She has the B.O. to prove it too.. /snicker
PPS – When we were getting the paint mixed, my wife asked the “mixer” what he knew about the paint.. His reply “Well, it’s REAL EXPENSIVE!!” hehehe How’s that for a seal of confidence!! My wife was NOT thrilled.. hehe
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