A Paint Review

Moving to a new place, a rental, I wanted to paint to make it feel like home, but wanted to save as much time as possible, since there is a possibility we might only be there for the 12-month lease.

I decided to give the new "Behr Premium Plus Ultra" paint a try, since it claims to have great coverage and be primer + paint in one.

I'm far from a professional painter, but I have painted a whole apartment on my own before, painted my bedroom twice, and even painted a faux suede bedroom, and a striped beach house-themed bathroom -- yes, totally corny, but you need to have fun somewhere, right? I'm leaving it and I still love it:


Anyway, off we went to Home Depot, and grabbed four colors of paint.

This weekend, we got our keys, and I got started on my 22 ft long red wall in the living room, and the orange/terracotta color in the second bedroom.

Having past experience with painting red walls, I was DREADING having to do that again. Last time, I used a "one coat guarantee" paint (which I know now there's no such thing as a one coat paint, as the second coat makes all the difference), and that required a tinted primer, and THREE coats of red. Three coats! And I could have still benefited with a fourth coat, but by then I was tired, running out of paint, and knew part of the wall would be covered by furniture anyway, so I could live with that. And I did.

The Behr paint I bought had very mixed reviews online, so I was expecting the worse, hoping for the best, but even my highest expectations were not a match to the quality of the paint.

Anyone who has ever painted a red wall, knows it is the worst color in terms of coverage. This is my red wall (eggshell finish, color: dozen roses) after one coat (painted on top of white walls, with no primer):



This is the terracotta bedroom (eggshell finish, color: maple glaze) after one coat, also painted on top of white paint, using no primer:


Though the boy approved, the terracotta came out too dark for my liking, so I got it lightened by 50% for my second coat.

These are the finished products (excuse the flash glare on the first picture, the actual paint is even):


This is the finished second bedroom:


So the Behr Premium Plus Ultra paint was not cheap, by Home Depot standards anyway (it came out to $32/gallon), but for the quality, the coverage, and the time saving, it was totally worth it. The finished product after two coats is amazing, definitely the best quality paint I have used so far (and my faux suede paint was a $47/gallon paint by Sherwin Williams).

The paint was thick, easy to paint, and there were no splatters or dripping (I didn't even need the plastic to cover the whole floor, as I had in the past).

The bad? The paint IS thicker than others. So I used a lot more than I expected. While usually for a bedroom that size (about 180 sq ft) one gallon has been enough in the past, this time I needed a second gallon for full coverage. There was a little bit of paint left at the end, but not even a quart.

Would I use it again? I don't think I'll ever be able to paint with anything else.