When you’re doing a small DIY home renovation, or when you just want a new coat of paint to rejuvenate your home’s appearance, there’s one thing many people don’t consider: Which type of paint are you going to use?
Sure, you probably spend hours or days choosing what color you want for your exterior and interior walls, but we’re willing to bet you haven’t considered the various types of paint on the market and how they stack up against each other.
Do you need the cheapest option available? What about a two-in-one primer solution? Maybe you need more outdoor protection against various forms of damage? When you finally realise the type of paint, what about the brands, are they all the same quality?
Obviously, there are various options available and picking the right paint requires you to know exactly what you’re trying to achieve with the project.
This is where the importance of planning and preparation can’t be stressed enough. Also, you need to understand what options are available to you.
So, without further ado, let’s look at the various types of paint options, what they’re good for, and what you should choose for your home’s next renovation project.
Why is Paint Choice Important?
To answer this question, we asked our talented and experienced friend who works at Advanced Painting. They told the following:
On the surface, all paint may seem the same. They all leave a pigment on your walls, and if you use the right techniques, you can make even the cheapest quality paint look good.
However, it’s not always about how it looks. Quality plays a huge role in durability and ultimately your return on investment.
Different paint formulas are designed with different properties in mind. Some paints are designed with outdoor purposes in mind. They’re more expensive, and their top traits don’t have any use indoors.
Some are designed to minimize the amount of work you must put into the project by adding thick primers with the final coat solution into one tin.
This prevents you from having to repaint the same spot twice with two different products.
Then, there are more specialized options that you may or may not need depending on where and how you’re using them.
These specialized paints typically cost much more than a standard option, and if chosen for the wrong reasons, they can raise the price of your project considerably for no real reason.
Best Choices for Your Home’s Exterior
Picking the color you use is entirely up to you, but you’ll notice every outdoor paint you find will have an additional label on it; we’re talking about gloss, semi-gloss, flat, and satin.
Those aren’t just there to describe how shiny the result will be. These labels have an impact on the finish when the painting is complete and has dried.
Any of these products can be purchased with built-in primer, and that’s typically the best route to take to cut down on the amount of work you must do on such a large surface.
Flat:
Flat paint has no shine to it. This can leave your home looking dull, but it does have its purpose.
If your home’s exterior has a lot of imperfections, such as aged wood, dings in the siding from hailstorms, or other issues that aren’t very pleasant for the eye, flat paints can make them less noticeable without the high cost of repairs.
Sheen:
Sheen is basically flat paint with a slight gloss effect. This makes it a great middle-ground between hiding perfections and being durable, but it’s also extremely easy to clean spotlessly.
This is a solid option if you have minor exterior damage that needs to be hidden, but you don’t want to sacrifice durability.
Semi-Gloss:
Semi-gloss exterior paint is a lot shinier than the “sheen” option. It also adds more protection than the previous two, but it can be difficult to clean, and it doesn’t hide imperfections well.
This makes it great for trim, accents, and doors, but you might be better off with another choice for the rest of your home.
Gloss:
Gloss paint is the shiniest option you can get, and it creates a durable enamel shield for the walls and trim of your exterior surfaces.
This makes it perfect for protecting a pristine home over the long term, saving you money on repairs and giving your home an eye-catching shine.
Best Interior Paints
There are three main paints best suited for the interior of your home.
Water-Based:
Water-based paints are usually called acrylic or latex. They are super easy to clean, and it goes on smoothly across large surfaces. This makes it the perfect choice for your interior walls. Another plus is they tend to be a bit cheaper.
Oil-Based:
Oil-based paint is designed to withstand abuse over years of use. It’s not as easy to clean as water-based options, but it’s far less likely to chip if you bump into it, set something on it, or otherwise abuse the surface it’s on.
This makes it a great option for painting on trim and doors. Hopefully, you won’t be cleaning those as often, and the added durability will keep you from having to re-do your trim work as often.
Sheen:
Just like the interior paints, this is flat paint with a slight shine added to it.
It’s easy to clean, hides imperfections, and is quite durable. It’s usually a little more expensive, but the added durability can make a huge difference in how often you need to repaint your interior.
It’s also suitable for all indoor uses, but keep in mind that it will reflect a lot of light. This might not be ideal if you want your rooms to be overly bright.
Antimicrobial Paint:
Finally, this is a relatively newer type of paint that has hit the market. There are indoor and outdoor versions, and they both do the same thing.
Antimicrobial paint actively prevents the growth and multiplication of various fungi, microbes, and other things that can slowly destroy your protective layer and damage the wood beneath.
While this option has many benefits it is more expensive, and it’s rarely necessary for indoor uses.
However, if you’re renovating your bathroom, the antimicrobial properties of this paint can help prevent excessive moisture from creating mildew and fungi.
For some inspiration, check out these bathroom renovation ideas you can use antimicrobial paint with.
Consider a Professional Team
All of this can be very difficult to decide on your own, but professional painters can make the process easy.
If you’re a little confused or don’t know how to increase the value of your investment, consider hiring or consulting an experienced painting team that knows these paint options inside and out.
They can make the decision process much easier.
