semi-gloss here I come!

[felisdomesticus]

when we moved into the house, I was annoyed to see that several rooms were painted with semi-gloss paint. (they had small children) Sooooooooo I had to sand it all down, prime it twice, and then paint my various shades of beach colors on the walls.

After simple-greening and scrubbing and simple-greening and scrubbing and simple-greening and scrubbing my poor cream-colored eggshell-painted walls this afternoon around Scarlett's cage----- I think I'm going to repaint the room in semi-gloss next summer.

In some spots I have scrubbed so much I can see the old color! In others, the dark blue and red stains of blueberries and pomegranates just won't disappear.

I have come full circle with my paint ideas.

[Lori L]

Benjamin Moore makes a great washable flat latex paint. Regal Matte, here's the link:

http://www.homeportfolio.com/catalog...l?prodId=81869

Semi gloss should really only be used in bathrooms as far as I'm concerned

[Birdsmile]

What about those paints made especially for kids rooms
i think they clean real well

[Rue]

...sorry! I have semi-gloss EVERYWHERE...I'll agree it's not the nicest looking...but it stays healthy the longest...and therefore stays nicer-looking longer...until my crew learn to keep their fingers, paws, claws, fins, and whatevers clean and to themselves...we're stickin' with the semi-gloss!

[jimpierce7]

why not wash your walls with liquad TSP before painting. Kelly Moore now has a washable flat paint. I'm an apartment maint. mngr and get to paint a lot. BUT I am not a painter. I know enough to do what I do :) I personally don't like the look of semi-gloss thru out. My mind relates it to hotels. There are several other lower sheen paints to use also, such as egg shell or satin sheen.

[Alyce Johnson]

I'm the re-painting queen. (or is that "fool"?) Nearly 15 yrs in a Victorian flat with 11.5 ft ceilings and tons of trim - we have repainted many many times - the trim is just so cool, you have to try out a new color combo every 3 years or so. (That's an exageration, but my husband would say it was at least that often.) LOL

I use semigloss everywhere, and full gloss on trim. It really pulls the detailed woodwork out visually, and makes all those grooves in the moldings (that get both greasy & dusty 10+ feet up) a whole lot easier to clean! And of course, it washes clean easier too, whether you're talking cat piss or birdy poo!

If you use full gloss on the trim (and possibly even on the ceiling, esp if you paint your ceiling a darker shade than your walls) semigloss can end up looking realy nice on the walls - you need to give it the contrast of full gloss somewhere in the room, is all. And it's a real B**** to paint *over* too (you will need to use something like TSP which is toxic to humans, never mind birds). So, I'd just go with it, if I were you.

It really matters what colors you use!
If you stay away from white or cream or any "true" shades (on the walls at least) and go for greyed out tones, semigloss doesnt have to look tacky at all. I even managed to get my Victorian kitchen to look vintage, with the right 2 colors. You can run a simulation at a lot of paint stores, to help coordinate walls, trim & ceiling. And you can get sample sizes in some paints too, now, which really helps an amazing amount!

How the color works with the light in your home will totally make or break the look when you're using semigloss on the walls. Do a test patch first - on at least 2 walls. It can look classy if you do it right. (I've had it come out both ways, so I learned the hard way that choosing a semigloss color is way trickier than flat paint.)

But no way am I going to try to get grime off of 11.5 foot ceilings painted in flat or eggshell! Or off of Victorian trim 10 feet up painted in anything less than full gloss. (Converted Victorians dont have hoods on the stoves, typically, so you get a lot of grease settling down way high up - and laughing at you, as you look up at it in despair.) So, I've learned to tinker with the colors to get the higher gloss paints to work.

Bring home *a lot* of paint chips, for starters and check them in both daylight and your evening artificial light before you even buy a sample. Subtle changes in color are magnified exponentially when you're using semi on walls. It can look great and clean up easy too - it just takes making careful choices with your colors. First try the ones you would normally choose only with more gray/black in them - darker value is that what they call it? (Not darker color, but a different tone - it should be on the same paint strip card as the one you would normally choose.) You'll love it and once you have it i bet you'll never want anything else. It cleans up like a dream!

[Rue]

...yeah! What Alyce said!

[jimpierce7]

:) a Victorian home verses a square walled apartment..........apples and oranges. lol and what do you mean (tick tick tick) that TSP is (tick tick tick) toxic?