What color paint? There are whites and there are WHITES

When to choosing the colour to put on your walls you will find that it will be on of the hardest decisions that you will have to make.

Bunnings in Box Hill was our ritual every weekend. And after picking our base colour scheme we went through about 9 colour samples pots before settling on our final choice.

Our base colour was grey walls and white trims and ceiling.

After trying a multitude of different greys, we settle on tranquil retreat (1/4 strength), vivid white for the trims, and Brilliant White for the ceilings (A special dulux product). We chose to go with Dulux.

Paint Types used - We chose to go with the Dulux range.

For the walls we used low sheen "Wash n Wear" as this was on sale at Bunnings for $69 for a 6 litre tin (bonus 2 litres).

For ceilings we used a much more expensive ceiling white paint called "Light & Space" in brilliant white. It has some titanium pigments in the paint to make their whites brighter. Coverage of this paint is not very good, we used a spray machine for the ceiling, however found that the rollover was much better to use. We had to cover very old of pink ceilings so 3 coats was required, and a brown ceiling which required 4 coats. Under sunlight the room is very bright and would definitely use the paint again.

For the trims we used high gloss "Aquaenamel" paint. The reason I chose a water based paint, was because I was going for a vivid white finish and I did not want the white is yellow over time like it would with the oil based paint. The finished is not as good a oil based. And I have to do a light sand after each coat to get a smooth "brush stroke free" finish. I would use this paint again as well as it was a lot glossier that I expected, about 80% gloss of oil base high gloss. so really its in between a semi gloss and high gloss oil based paint. The only down point of the paint it that I had to sand in between coats of get a smooth finish.

For all the prep work, we used the Dulux 1 Step. Tip here is to mix your colors into prep paint for a much better coverage and finish when you put on you top coats.

Below pic is one of a room with all completed paint work except for the window trims which only the prep coats is on. I had to do 2 prep coats as the old oil based trims are dark pink.