IN PRAISE OFPAINT
By CHUCK ROSS Special to the Daily Press I
Pick a shade and go for it. A quart of Raspberry Jazz interior latex certainly won’t save the world but it may be just the ticket to refresh your home and lift your spirits. Try these bright ideas. sing the praises of paint. Cave-dwelling ancestor who first mashed berry and root to match that season’s new shade of mauve, I bow to you! As a homeowner drawn to residences with “potential,”I have long understood paint’s transformative powers.
During those times when I’ve felt the wind whistling through the gaps around 90-year-old windows and waited in vain for hot water to flow from clogged, galvanized steel shower pipes, I’ve turned to paint to regain a semblance of control.
Rolling on that first broad stroke of color never fails to invest me with a new spirit of confidence and capability. (OK, there was that debacle with “raspberry sorbet,”but it was easily made right with a quick trip back to the paint store).
“Interior painting is the No. 1 do-it-yourself job,” says Debbie Zimmer, resident paint expert at the Rohm & Haas Paint Quality Institute, Spring House, Penn. “Paint can absolutely transform a living space.It can make the space appear larger or smaller, it can warm a room up and completely change the feeling a homeowner gets.”
For example, she notes, warm yellows and reds in a north facing room can help remove some of winter’s cold bite. Similarly, cool blues and greens can help create a relaxing respite in south-facing rooms in the summer.
But the sheer range of options paint offers can be overwhelming. Today, when just selecting a shade of white can require Solomon-like powers of decision, consumers also have any number of packaged faux-treatment kits from which to choose. Experts suggest putting some thought into an overall decorating strategy before hitting the color chips is the best way to narrow your options to a more manageable level.
“I think the most important thing is to not think about the color first,”says Barbara Richardson,director of color marketing at Cleveland-based ICI Paints, whose brands include Glidden.“Start out by problem solving.What are you aiming for? Do you want the room to be fun and vibrant or relaxing? Then ask yourself what are the other constraints in the room?”
Once you’ve pared down your choices, bringing home a quart of one or more candidates to paint your own test
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 3, 2004. Read the original PDF.