Speaking Of Paint

I love paint and a great house painter. I’ve known many painters in my years as a designer and not all are created equal.  Some painters show up for the first day and disappear for a week. Some never return and the list is quite endless.

When I find a great painter, I hold on to them as best as I can. I’m true blue when it comes to contractors and keep the work flowing as long as they perform to my extremely high expectations. I’m the interior designer you want to hire if you want a perfectionist’s eye to fine tune the final product.

My current roster of painters fit the bill and have made many clients very happy as they see their homes transformed with carefully chosen color palettes customized for their homes. I’ve convinced many painters that a certain shade is the right choice even when they disagree. It’s comforting to hear that my choice was best choice. 

It’s also great to hear a client acclaim, “I love it”. So, when I start out with a client paint consultation, I interview them with the skill of a therapist vetting the most important information to reach the perfect shade of blue, green or currently a gray. Yes, gray is big and I choose it for many applications.

I admit, this is a skill set not owned by many and I relish the expertness of honing this art.  How many shades of purple can one manufacturer come up with? The answer is “plenty”. When a client orders purple for her 10-year-old daughter, I ferret out the most divine shade, “peace & happiness”—a Benjamin Moore favorite of mine for all ages, all rooms.

Painting is the most dramatic way to transform a room, but it does not come cheap, nor should it. I typically quote an estimate only to have some new clients admit that they think it’s rather high.   

That’s when I encourage additional bids from their own referrals and sources. They’re always surprised and rightly so. I like to control my jobs with the choosing of my highly skilled professionals. I can guarantee a job well done. I can’t do that with the unknown.

So, this rainy spring, try a new color palette for the master bedroom, or just start small with a powder room where you can sometimes go crazy with color. My local merchants are Ace Hardware for Benjamin Moore and Ace brand paints, and Sherwin-Williams for everything “paint”.

Another quick way to change up the scenery is to paint out the front door with a new shade. It’s the face of the house and a true sign that a house is cared for and maintained. My new front door greeting:  brookside moss by Benjamin Moore.