Go-to paints, Part II

I wrote recently about my go-to paint, Farrow & Ball. That’s not to say I never use other paints. I think I’ve used at least one paint from all of the major paint brands. Check out my favorites and the colors I chose below:

PPG Delicate White (Breakthrough 250, sun parlor woodwork, child’s kitchen playset) - I highly recommend this paint and this white. The paint is so durable; it’s like coating your woodwork in liquid diamonds. This is a wonderful, soft white without any undertones. I have a lot of trouble finding white paints that don’t have blue or yellow undertones. Delicate White is perfect - I paired it with Farrow & Ball Pink Ground, a peachy blush pink.

Sherwin-Williams Marshmallow (Emerald Satin, kitchen walls) and Sleepy Hollow (Duration Satin, kitchen cabinets) - Emerald is far superior to Duration, which I’ve found chips/rubs off horribly. Emerald is the paint I will occasionally color match to Farrow & Ball. SW and Benjamin Moore both do a great job with their color matches. SW at least can even match F&B archive colors, which is very useful. F&B doesn’t sample out their archive collection, and it’s a big leap to buy a $110 gallon of paint that might not look right in the space!

Benjamin Moore White Diamond (Regal Select Outdoor eggshell, porch railings and trim), Constellation (Regal Select and Ben Outdoor eggshell, porch ceiling), and Caliente (Regal Select Outdoor Pearl, Porch window trim) - I painted the porch last year, and it has survived this long without chipping or fading. A friend recommended BM over F&B for outdoor jobs, and I think they were right.

Painting our 118-year-old porch ceiling was a horrible job, by the way, and I (and the BM online paint calculator) grossly underestimated the amount of paint I’d need. I ended up going to Ace Hardware on Memorial Day because the BM store was closed. Ace only carries the BM entry-level paint, Ben, but it got fantastic coverage and was great to work with. Also the Kettering Ace Hardware customer service desk guy deserves a shoutout because I don’t think he’d ever mixed paint before.

Behr Rain Dance (Premium Plus Ultra Eggshell, dining room accent wall and window) - This is the only budget paint I can honestly recommend, but I also don’t recommend using budget paint. The odor is fairly low, and it does cover well. I do like the color - I chose it because it’s an exact match to one of the colors in our dining room wallpaper.