Colour your home décor with a fresh coat of paint
Today’s paint products offer homeowners the flexibility to easily change the look and “feel” of a room — or a houseful of rooms, including walls, cabinets, furniture, accessories and trim items — by changing the colour of a painted surface or adding paint to achieve a decorative effect.
Home renovation stores will have all the paints and related accessories and supplies to ‘recolour’ your home. For example, there’s Black Dog Salvage Furniture Paint, which was developed specifically for use with furniture that’s been custom-built or accessories that might once have been part of an historic structure.
Using Black Dog, a pure black, and Clean Canvas, a pure white, homeowners can create an unlimited number of shades that can be mixed using 13 additional colours with whimsical names like Caution: Dogs at Work (orange). The water-based ultra matte chalky finish interior paint is easy to use, self-leveling and low-VOC, and it covers in one coat. It can be used on finished and unfinished surfaces like furniture, woodwork, metal, glass and more and does not require priming.
The companion Black Dog Salvage Guard Dog Topcoat Paint Protector is tough enough for floors and can be used for all types of indoor projects, such as cabinets, countertops, furniture, and decorative items. Additional paint options General Finishes Milk Paint is a high-tech, water-based acrylic paint for interior and exterior use that is available in more than two dozen colours, ranging from Dark Chocolate to Tuscan Red.
It is easy to apply, durable and simple to repair and can be mixed to create new colours or combined with General Finishes waterbased glazes and stains to create custom paints and decorative effects such as distressing, antiquing and colour washing.
Rust-Oleum Chalked Paint is a water-based, ultra-matte finish for interior applications that can be used alone as a simple covering paint or to achieve decorative effects such as distressing or dry brushing to give any project a one-of-a-kind look with a vintage feel. It applies easily with brush or roller; spraying is not recommended.
If using an interior paint for exterior projects such as doors, shutters, or porches, an exterior topcoat will need to be added for protection from the elements.
General Finishes Exterior 450 is fortified with UV absorbers to minimize fading and built-in mildewcides to help retard the growth of mold and fungus. Plus, Exterior 450 is fast, as it’s ready to sand in just one hour in ideal conditions.
CrystaLac Exterior Finish is a water-based, flexible, UV-stabilized, waterproof, clear topcoat for exterior furniture, doors and crafts.
For best results, apply when temperature is between 15 C and 27 C. This paint dries to the touch in about 15 minutes, but wait two to four hours to recoat. Handy helpers for painting • Wagner Home Décor Paint Sprayer. This is a great first-step product for those new to HVLP spraying. It is easy to use and sprays milk paint, stains, sealers and lacquers. Check your paint manufacturer’s directions for use in sprayers.
• The versatile Vika Twofold is configured for use as a 21.7"-high scaffold or a workbench that is 47.6 inches long by 18.7 inches deep and 31.8 inches high with a tool tray, drilling hole, protractor and ruler inscribed into the MDF work surface.
• QuikBENCH Portable Workbench is a lightweight, easy-to-set-up portable workbench with a 30 inch by 24 inch work surface that is 32 inches high and capable of holding up to 300 pounds. Convert two of them to sawhorses, and together they can hold up to 2,000 lbs.
• Painter’s Pyramids, New and Improved 10-pack allows homeowners to paint, flip and paint without having to wait for the first side to dry. Pyramids now include tabs and slots on the bases so they can be screwed down to make permanent finishing platforms or joined together to create more stable temporary applications.
• Redtree Finishing Brushes feature beaver tail-style hardwood handles and handtrimmed chisel edge bristles.
• Unlike Microfibre tack clothes, regular tack clothes do not work for finishing with water-based products. But a 12-pack of washable and reusable microfibre tack cloths will work.