Aura is good paint, and your painters are obviously familiar with it to have quoted you a job in it. I'd be very hesitant to use a paint that's twice as expensive that your painters haven't used before. While professionals are "professional", new products do have a learning curve, and having your kitchen be their lab experiment wouldn't be a good idea. It'd also be quite a bit more costly because of the added materials expense, as well as the added labor to be working with more expensive materials. It might almost double your quote. The only way to know the answer to that question would be to ask your painters. If they've already purchased the paint, I'm sure they'd expect reimbursement for that as well as the additional cost of the paint and additional labor markup, so if you do want to change, hurry up and ask them about it so they can maybe do some testing with the paint you want before they get to your house.

Thanks.

I do have some questions if you don't mind answering (and pls excuse my ignorance): why would there be additional labor for working with more expensive paint?

I know they haven't yet purchased the paint as they've given me till Thursday to finalize my choices.

Thanks,
ella

It's fairly standard practice within the construction industry that higher priced products will have higher labor rates attached to them. They are at a higher risk of outlay if the products are damaged. For instance, if the painters spill a gallon of the Aura, they're out $50. If they spill a gallon of F&B, they're out $110. It's the "insurance" principal. In your case, there would also be additional risk if they've not used that brand before. It's out of their "comfort zone". That costs more in labor to do new things or use new products. It's riskier for them. They pass the dollar costs assessed for that risk along to the customer.

Now it makes sense.

Another question please : would it make any difference if I bought the paint? (I'm not even sure if F&B give a contractor discount). If I said I'd buy the paint, do they then give me a discount on the quoted price or does that stay the same?

Again, pls excuse my ignorance and thanks in advance.

ella

We looked at both. We would have had to pay for the F&B in its entirety. We probably could have negotiated a little in price since our cabinetmaker wouldn't have needed to buy paint, but are already getting a good deal on the cabinets, so didn't want to nickel and dime him. You'll have to ask your specific cabinet people, though. Ours was willing to use a different BM paint for the same price, but in the end we stuck with the Aura in satin. We did see a sample door in it and it looks good; hard to tell too much on durability since it was newly painted and Aura takes time to cure. It wasn't worth it to add the huge cost to the project for us, as beautiful as the F&B paints are.

Good luck!

Thank you.

I have samples in Aura and they do look good although the colors aren't quite the F&B colors. I think it's a little about wanting the best of both worlds - I want to find some way of managing the budget while incorporating the use of the F&B paint!

I think it's also possible for us to use F&B on one set of cabinets (in a separate area) and use Aura on the rest as they'd be different colors. I have to think more about this obviously...

Thanks,
ella