![]() Once all surfaces are smooth, give them a good dusting, ideally with a microfiber cloth, though a plain terry cloth towel will also work, then clean the walls with soapy water. Fill gouges and gaps with a combination of caulk and spackling compound. Create a smooth surface by scraping away cracked or peeling paint with a putty knife. ✔️ Prep the surface before you paint: Remember, the best paint in the world can't make up for shoddy prep work. For large projects, buying five-gallon containers instead of single gallons is a great way to save cash. Most brands and retailers have paint calculators that can help with the math. A typical gallon of paint covers 350 to 400 square feet. ✔️ Calculate the amount: To figure out how much paint you need, add up the total square footage of your walls, ceilings and other surfaces. Painting sections of heavy paper, rather than the wall itself, will allow you to take the samples from room to room. Paint chips are fine, but our experts also recommend buying small sample jars of your favorite hues and seeing how they look under the actual light conditions of your home. But it's always important to test a few colors out in your home. Retailers also have color-matching technologies that mean you can get close to any color you crave in just about any brand. Most major brands and retailers have color-finding tools on their websites that are helpful for zeroing in on the right palette for your project. ✔️ Choose your color: This can be the toughest decision of all, but it doesn’t have to be. Some paint brands have one or the other in their lines, while some offer both, in which case the satin will be the shinier of the two for added durability. Both have a bit of shine that makes them durable and stain resistant, though they can show minor imperfections. They’re the most common finishes, ideal for kitchens, bathrooms and other high-traffic areas. Eggshell and satin fall in between flat and semigloss.Use it for doors and trim, where it brings durability and can also highlight interesting detail work. Semigloss has the highest shine of these options for maximum protection against scuffs, stains and more.Flat paint has a matte finish that hides imperfections, but it's not as stain resistant and is harder to clean, making it best suited to low-traffic, decorative areas of the home, like a living room.The three main options are flat, semigloss and eggshell/satin: ✔️ Figure out the finish: A paint’s finish affects its performance, color and appearance. After more than 100 hours of rigorous testing - including applying, scrubbing, analyzing and, yes, watching the paint dry - we arrived at the following list of winners for a slew of interior spaces, ranging from bedroom accent walls to statement kitchens.ĭetermining the best paint brand and model for your project is an important first step, but there are still several things to consider in order to get perfect results (or as close to perfect as possible): That's what we at the Good Housekeeping Institute looked for in our latest interior paint report. The best paints on the market hit the sweet spot, combining performance, appearance, ease of application and sustainability, all while keeping costs in check. Adding or removing solvents will impact odors and off-gassing. Different binders might improve adhesion but not smoothness. A change in pigments could affect depth of color. Substituting a new additive might increase durability, but at the expense of stain resistance. ![]() It means the ingredients a manufacturer uses for a new formulation will determine that paint's performance. There's an old saying in the paint business: A bucket of paint is a bucket of compromises. ![]() We updated this story in January 2023 with all-new picks and information based on extensive testing done by the Good Housekeeping Institute's Home Improvement & Outdoor Lab.
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