Yes I agree with all or most of what people are saying in here. Remember to always go overboard on prepping and cleaning as this will determine the best end result. No amount of paint will hide a bad drywall hanging and or refinishing job. If you want quality results you must spend the time smoothing out your walls and celings. That said I personally like Sherwin Williams Paint. Color Accents/Promar 200 and 400 are excellent choices and good bang for the buck. I also recommend Lowes Signature paint (Made by Valspar) The 100% Acrylic line only and the one that says on the can lifetime warranty. This is decently thick paint with 1-2 coat coverage and has a decent amount of solids in it. I have used it several times and have had nothing but great results but everyone has thier preferences. I would concur that Behr stinks and American Traditions should be avoided as well. Glidden Paint is a no go. Duron is owned by Sherwin Williams and there paint is decent and will give satisfactory results. Dont be swayed by Ralph Lauren or other fancy names instead look at what the chemical and solids content of the base that they are using to mix it up with as this is a good indicator of quality and Consumer Reports is not the best reference to go by as well as they are not painters and we all know that painting is an art. Good Luck!

FPE-lore...her goes!! What makes a "Great" paint: 1) Extremely fine pigment grinding. - I've been told they use an old-style ball-mill, and grind pigments for 3 WEEKS...instead of the U.S.'s "hours", or a day or so. - This leads to VERY DENSE/OPAQUE film-builds. - The Gloss-levels of their Brilliant lines are near mirror-like because of this. - Details like this are discussed on their DVD. 2) 2 Colorant types..."Pastes"... - VERY important here! - The U.S. uses Glycol-based Universal-Tint-Colorants (UTC's), because these mix into BOTH Latex AND Oil binders. - Instead of the LIQUID Glycol-based colorants 99% of mfr's. use, FPE's are VERY finely ground/dense PASTES. - This makes a deep FPE color MUCH more opaque than the typical U.S. "loads-of-liquid colorant" built colors. - So...instead of dumping a boat-load of liquid Glycol-based colorant into a sheer dark tint-base, FPE uses pastes. - Another HUGE difference...FPE uses SEPARATE Acrylic and Alkyd colorant-pastes! So....Latexes and Oils each have their own colorants! CHEAP...No. Effective...Very. - Bottom-line...the FACTORY and the stores use THE SAME COLORANT! In a way, an FPE store IS a "factory" of sorts... 3) Friendly Ingredients: - Low VOC's in the Latexes. - Only light odors too, and dissipate quickly. 4) My own tests: - I've described my "Wine Red" test on the Paint forum. ONE COAT...pulled thin...COMPLETE OPACITY...NOT normal! - I did a pop-and-water rub test on this too. - Using the Oil glosses...Uffda. You can SEE yourself clearly! And I used a foam brush... - Same thing with the Low-VOC ECO. Beautiful, bright, clean gloss! - Because of this, I ordered some for my downstairs bath. VERY pleased...I left it as one coat! Very tough film. - The Eurolux Matte I used seems totally impervious to water. It's more of an Eggshell look though... Soooo...to ME...this stuff is the Four-Seasons of Paint! Faron

Paintguy, I know we disagree on a couple things, but you rock. You have established a paint/color point of view, you stick with it, you are consistent and you express your thoughts with respect and sometimes even a cute little sense of humor. ;-) You have a gift of saying a whole lot with few words. You are confident in what you've done, seen, and what you know and I for one appreciate your sharing that insight very much. kashka - that's it exactly! How DOES what you learned in art class apply to coloring the built environment? What CAN you take away from the theory books and use, and what parts of theory are just that, theory? My history with "color theory" is somewhat amusing. I can tell you that while in the midst of it, it really wasn't very funny. When I came out the other side from those experiences :-) and ventured in to this realm, we know as wall color, I was confused. I was trying to take what I knew about color before and make it fit in my new color world. It didn't work. I know that I have a unique point of view on color and those experiences are why. This is the best way I can describe what I've experienced. There is no one to ask, nothing to reference, no comprehensive studies just floating around on the www that speak to what happens to color on three-dimensional structure -- that amalgamation of subtractive color, form, light, and people. That's why I'm always asking tell me what you know, tell me how and why you know it, show me what you've done. There's some stuff out of Sweden from the late '90s, there's some stuff going on in the UK today, but nothing to go get and use NOW. Instead, all you will find repeatedly is various interpretations of two-dimensional color theory forced on the three-dimensional. It's like trying to make a square peg fit into a round hole. Pound hard enough and you can probably get that peg wedged in that round hole to the point that you can say it fits. The square peg will be battered. Corners clumsily whittled and splintered. By no means a good fit in that round hole, but it made it in none the less. Just talk about color theory and it all *sounds* reasonable, plausible. But.... go DO it. Execute to those ideals three-dimensionally. What happens? What works? Then add in another important factor, human beings. What changes? What parts of conventional, two-dimensional color theory flies out the window and leaves you standing there with nothing but your own set of eyeballs to figure it all out. Books about color are great and the more you are exposed to the better, of course. Personally, I'm to the point that all the color theory books are the same -- none of them speak to the challenges that I face. I need information, data, guidance that will facilitate forecasting how a particular color will *appear* in a room, on a house, etc. I have developed my own process, made my own observations, solved some of those challenges on my own - just by trial and error and paying attention. I know what works for me, but what about everyone else? This is why I am so passionate about what color options are made available to the color consumer. Those options increase the odds of the average consumer of color being able to make a successful partnership between the light that the have to work with, their stuff, and their color expectations. With a myriad of options available, the actual mixing of the color (or having it mixed) and deciding on the paint are the easiest parts of the whole process. There are harder questions to answer. People are the main priority. Light is boss - always. Stuff (design style, furniture, art, window treatments, etc.) matter too. How do you take the essence of those three major points of criteria and translate it into a single color. That's asking a lot out of something as simple as color, isn't it? However, that's not all we're looking for. That's not all we want color to do. We want cohesiveness. We want harmony. We want color to create atmosphere. We want color to organize and define. We want color to customize, individualize and make sanctuary out of empty, blank walls. There is much work to do. There is a lot to discover. When I say that color is a journey, I'm not kidding. And theres always an alternative -- lower your expectations of color and just pick something off the shelf and be done with it that certainly can work too. :-)

Okay, so I am having trouble with the Aura setting up. I tried using more paint which helped some of the drying problems (smoother finish generally) but the "seams" are still rough. The overlap between some of the columns gets tacky and I end up with a rough feeling area between them that looks kind of like a concrete texture. If I don't knock back (feather out) the column's wet edge very quickly (under a minute) , a small ridge occurs because it has begun to set up. But when I feather it out, then the paint is thinner and dries faster, so it gets tacky very quickly, I think. I have tried various ways of rolling. 2 x 3 sections. Up and down. Not sure if one or the other is better but I seem to find the up and own (8 foot ceiling) more difficult to manage. And I need to run the roller tight to the ceiling and corners. I am not working slow! What would you suggest for the transition areas between the columns? And does Regal Select have much more open time than Aura? Maybe I would find it easier to work with? This post was edited by snookums2 on Thu, Jan 16, 14 at 1:41