Interior Painting Questions

[Gary Steed]

Hi all,

I will be painting most if the interior of my house soon and would like
to hear opinions on the following;

Wall paint - flat, satin, semi-goss or glossy. In the past I've always
used flat, but with new kids I'm leaning toward semi-gloss
or satin.

Ceiling - White or same as wall color. White seems to brighten the room.

Baseboards/moulding - I usually use a white semi-gloss on these. What
about crown moulding.

Power rollers - I don't have one. Should I get one?

That's all I can think of for now. Any other hints are appreciated.

(I havn't seen the paint FAQ for a while and it wasn't at the house
archive. Any one have it?)

Thanks in advance.

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Gary Steed Hewlett-Packard Co.
PAITC Network Engineering
Unix: st...@hpcc26.corp.hp.com Palo Alto, CA.

[Albert Cheng]

In article <410...@hpcc01.corp.hp.com> st...@hpcc01.corp.hp.com (Gary Steed) writes:
>
>Hi all,
>
>I will be painting most if the interior of my house soon and would like
>to hear opinions on the following;
>
> Wall paint - flat, satin, semi-goss or glossy. In the past I've always
> used flat, but with new kids I'm leaning toward semi-gloss
> or satin.

I also have kids. My painter recommended "eggshell latex" for
bedrooms, living room and hallways. It is somewhere between flat and
semi-gloss. I like it. It gives a warm feeling and is easy to wipe
clean too. (With kids running around, flat is no no.)

He also recommended semi-gloss for kitchen walls. Real easy to wipe those
greasy smoke off. You probably know you should not use semi-gloss in bedrooms
or living room. Too shiny. Giving you a hospital feeling.

We did not repaint the bathrooms. I guess semi-gloss would be appropriate.

>
> Ceiling - White or same as wall color. White seems to brighten the room.

I seldom see ceilings painted any color but white (or off-white?).

[Stavros Macrakis]

In article <410...@hpcc01.corp.hp.com> st...@hpcc01.corp.hp.com (Gary Steed) writes:

I will be painting most if the interior of my house soon and would like
to hear opinions on the following;

Wall paint - flat, satin, semi-goss or glossy. In the past I've always
used flat, but with new kids I'm leaning toward semi-gloss
or satin.

I find that walls look best when they're as flat as practical. Where
kids will be playing, this means something like a scrubbable eggshell
(e.g. Pratt & Lambert Accolade Velvet).

Ceiling - White or same as wall color. White seems to brighten the room.

White is the standard solution. I personally dislike it. A dark
ceiling can make a room feel very intimate, although dark. A
bright-colored ceiling can give character to a small room. But for
me, my favorite "standard" color for ceilings is an ochry yellow, a
lot yellower than off-whites, but not agressively bright.

I also disagree with the idea that white brightens rooms. I find it
makes them feel somewhat "cold", and it looks dirty very rapidly.

Baseboards/moulding - I usually use a white semi-gloss on these. What
about crown moulding.

Well, I don't think it's really possible to design color schemes over
the net! But there are all sorts of wonderful combinations possible:
blue trim with yellow walls; burgundy trim with beige walls; black
trim with burgundy walls; etc. A good bookstore should have a variety
of decorating books which can give you ideas. Semi-gloss is the
standard gloss to use on trim, by the way, but high gloss and dead
flat are also possible in certain circumstances.

-s