Prince George Painters Projects - Prince George Painters

Drywall Contractor's Recommended Paint and Primers

More on drywall and paint

Chalk paints hides imperfections. The cheapest way to paint new homes is to "paint new homes" with chalky paint to help hide drywall imperfections due to poor framing etc. Home owners eyes miss a large majority of this if flat paints are the primary products used. Mat finishes are a good thing and what we recommend, however, we use washable mat finished. If quality products however, are not used, this becomes even more noticeable about a year or less later. Our style of house painting constantly focuses on how to do better work than the acceptable basic minimum code. This is an in depth topic addressed throughout this site.

Most homes are painted with cheap high hide products, NOT quality high hide products. Good for the contractor working on your home, very bad for the home owner.

From my experience, most drywall contractors use paints that are easy to apply and multipurpose. One in particular seen on constructions sites is texture seal. This is an effective inexpensive primer used by the majority of drywall contractors for sealing the ceiling before texture is applied. This product is however, absolutely terrible for priming walls for any work we do. I see this product over and over being used as a primer for walls, which is nothing short of terrible and in my opinion, a disservice to your customer. Anyone that disagrees with me, has no value for high end painting and/or, does not know the difference between, good, better, best.
In the big picture, choosing quality paints may add an addition $500.00 to the price of your paint costs on an average home.

Ceilings

Even though new home ceiling are called "finished" once textured, using a high quality flat finish with a sheen lever less than 3, sprayed evenly by a professional painter, looks extremely better than any NEW texture left as is. Most drywall contractors disagree with this because they don't know how to paint ceilings with high quality mat finishes and/or, have never seen their ceilings painted properly. They have a personal thing about painting "their" work. They are proud of how it looks raw, however, the bottom line is... unpainted texture ( example "knock down" textured ceiling or popcorn, stipple) looks yellow and chalk like and yellow more and more as it ages. This is not a good look compared to quality painted ceilings ( by a professional). Painted ceilings are sealed! No dust, no porous absorption exposed. They will be healthier to live in and better lasting for years. They are also much easier to touch up if your paint ever touches the ceiling. It is near impossible to fix a mistake on raw texture. There are man advantages to painting new texture than not, and many advantage to using quality products apposed to using inferior products.

Home owners don't know the difference if all the ceilings are left unfinished. The home owner misses this process everytime, thus... lives with unfinished ceilings for years. Not until someone like the PAINTING Guys actually paints them will you know what you have been living under. Once you see, and understand the difference, you will never accept less.

Benefit of the doubt... Drywall Contractors eyes are not seeing colour and trim like professional painters do. They spend their entire day looking at wall board, mud and sanding dusty homes.

Bottom Line

If you allow a drywall contractor to paint your home... expect sub standard paint products and unfinished texture.

I have never met one drywall contractor in 33 years that would compare to a dedicated professional painter.

More on this subject and other aspects of drywall to come.

Below
Image of an average ceiling painted with low sheen level of 5 or less paint. There is no sign of flashing, brush marks or roller marks.
This ceiling is perfect mat shown in the most extreme light conditions.

painting ceilings

Abbotsford Interior Painting & Decorating

Example 1

300 hours of interior painting made the previous 5 year old paint job look like it was only finished in primer! Who is painting like this I say? All the beautiful homes I looked at up there were surprisingly finished with flat paints on the crown moldings, windows and baseboards (trim). If you own a home on Eagle Mountain in Abbotsford and feel your paint looks a bit drab, it's most likely because of this.
If you are wanting some painting done I highly recommend the new Benjamin Moore Ulti-Matte for walls, high entrances where flashing is harder to deal with and coloured ceilings. On quality trim work, a harder finish with a sheen is choice. Read this and next time you hire a painter expect the best. Flat paint on doors, baseboards etc are a fast and cheap way to get the job passed but IMHO, it isn't the best way to paint a quality home. Flat paint "on doors and casings" are for the "get-in get-out quick" and/or for hiding sloppy finishing work or defects thus... adds more profit into the contractors pockets. Eventually these flat spec paints start looking like chalk and scuff up so fast that within no time you need to repaint again. Bad for the customer, good for the painter.
Logically, why go to all the trouble of building stunning homes like these and then paint them like commercial projects? Sorry guys...I pretty much give up on working with general contractors. Not all share the fast and cheap way to paint but quality paint costs more money and a quality paint job takes more time. New home buyer's usually don't take close notice to the actual paint job until a year later when it starts looking like chalk.

Example 2.

Painting and Buffing Windows

Professionally painting trim with a quality pearl or semi gloss paint takes any home to a new level and IMO adds value to the home. Properly finished trim not only looks so much deeper and richer but it also lasts much longer and cleans much easier.

Check out these window casings in Example 2.

I HVLP 3 coats of Benjamin Moore Acrylic Latex Collection and buffed the final coat to an ultra smooth finish. Latex gives them a super soft look, Using an HVLP to put the latex paint on avoids the notorious "too shiny" look you get from oil, and gave these casings an incredible softer dusted look that is IMO is a new way to pro finish latex trim.

The home owner can simply take a soft cloth the these beauties and dust them off.

ProFinish Projects

Can Cedar Log Homes.

This season ProFinish travels to Manitoba to finish off this 90 ft wide CanCedar Log Home beauty. The wood stain products I'll be applying will be TimberPro UV for the exterior and Timber Pro Crystal Urethane for the interior of all the logs & T&G.
Stay tuned for all the finishing details...

CAD simulation credit:

PRINCE GEORGE KITCHEN CABINET RESTORATION & PAINTING

Abbotsford Interior Painting & Decorating

Painting and Buffing Windows

ProFinish Projects