I just posted this response over on kitchens. Thought I'd copy/paste it in there too. I am working on something rather crazy right now. I went to carry the bin drawer back into the garage after taking the pic with the new paint. A paint pro over on the paint forum brought up a great point about oil matte being difficult to clean and he said it can burnish and yellow. This is going to be a hard working piece. Probably the hardest working piece in the kitchen. SO I began thinking.... if I don't think the wood is "pretty" enough... why not try to make it prettier. I made our bath vanity out of a cheap kitchen island off craigslist by faux painting, staining, and playing with such a basic inexpensive BB top. So I looked in the cab and found a poly stain in a brown I had used on our outdoor cabs. I almost dry brushed it, wiped it off, rubbed it with my hands... you name it, I did it. Anyway, please tell me if it looks ridiculous or kinda good. I figure... I have the blue undertones, but warmer, and it's cleanable. Keep in mind it's just my initial "play" and I didn't perfect it... just wanted to see what it would look like. I may start a new thread with it so people will be more apt to look at it.

I just had a bathroom and bedroom remodeled in my house. My contractors told me to go to Sherwin Williams to pick out a color, so I went to the local SW showroom and picked a color called High Reflective White and told them I wanted it in semigloss for the walls. They tried to talk me into flat or eggshell, but I insisted on semigloss because I like the way it looks and everything else in my house is painted in semigloss and I've NEVER had a problem with semigloss paint. The owner/foreman of the contractor company said to me "you shouldn't use semigloss, it's going to peel right off the walls" - I thought he was joking. The day that the contractor's workers did painting, they brought in a 5 Gallon bucket of Promar200 paint - I wasn't expecting Promar, I was expecting one of the other Sherwin Williams brands. So, anyway, the workers started slapping paint on the brand new drywall WITHOUT putting primer on first. They did 2 coats of paint in the bathroom and bedroom on a Friday. I could still see purple wallboard through the paint so I did a third coat in the bathroom over the weekend. I have done a LOT of painting in my 51 years and I've never seen paint go on so poorly. It took forever to dry and it was very thin going on the walls. Since there was more construction to be done, the paint got nicked up in several places and I was absolutely shocked that the nicked paint literally led to THE PAINT PEELING RIGHT OFF THE WALL! I was in utter disbelief. If I tried to fix the edges of the nicks and scrapes, the paint literally started to peel right off the wall in sheets. Mind you, the bathroom was not yet in use at all! In fact, due to poor workmanship throughout the project that I complained about, the contractors that I hired literally ghosted me and walked off the job and I've since had to hire other competent contractors to come in and fix the problems...I haven't had a working bathroom for 12 weeks now, but that's another story...back to the peeling paint... The second contractors that I had to hire had to replace the new window that was installed in the bathroom by the first contractors because it was the wrong type of window (new construction with nail fin, and should have been replacement) and it was installed incorrectly on top of that. Because the new contractors had to cut away drywall around the window to replace it, the paint literally peeled off the wall as the drywall was being removed. I'm now in the process of peeling ALL of the paint off the walls so that I can add a primer coat and use something other than Promar200 which has to be the cheapest and worst paint on the face of the earth. So far, I peeled this much off in about 10 minutes. The smattering of paint that's in the lower left corner of the peeled area is where I tried to use a heat gun to scrape away the paint...that part is now stuck to the wallboard just slightly better than the rest of the paint, but as you can see, it's literally peeling off in sheets.

I prefer flat, but am not opposed to eggshell in kitchens and bathrooms where the cleaning needs to be done more vigorously (in my house, anyway). I have semi-gloss on trim (by previous owners). I love the gloss on my mom's flat walls & gloss trim. My trim is original & nice, so I suspect the gloss would be fantastic and add that something-something to the great wood details. I'll probably try a room with gloss trim some day when I'm bored. I have a 5 yr old, so I do have paint cleaning to keep up with on a regular basis. Chocolate milk splatters and grimey hands are inevitable in my house...in every room. lol! My entire house was flat paint throughout when I bought it. I do touch-ups with paint a lot (thanks to the kid) and the spots blend in just fine. Spots where I've tried to clean with magic eraser are UGLY and obvious. Cleanups with a damp washcloth are not as bad as magic eraser, but are still there...even on minor quick wipe-down spots. I've re-done my bathroom and went from flat to eggshell to avoid the constant touch-ups and it looks great. Thrilled I can clean & magic-eraser it without incident. Right now, my kitchen is flat (by previous owners) and I will be re-doing the room. I'll use eggshell when the time comes for same cleanup reasons. When I paint the other rooms, I will use flat again and be okay with touching up. Gayle

I apologize for the length of this post....but, for the benefit of anyone still reading this above discussion about permeability of various brick coatings, I would like to add my experience dealing with leaking substrate to help others, I would hope, and conclude with products I've found to work somewhat. And I realize this isn't my original post, but I end my statement with a question for those with opinions on how we all go about letting brick breathe that is also letting water in! In my opinion, the two gentlemen discussing waterproofing brick vs. letting it breathe are both correct. So, it just depends, and it's almost a catch -22. I'm remodeling a large, modern home. My brick and mortar are very porous. I know Rilem Tube testing can be inconsistent and tricky, but the water placed in the tube soaks right into my brick and mortar very quickly. We did the Rilem Tube test on each - - mortar and brick. I've had large commercial waterproofers look at my situation, as well as a smaller waterproofing company with many years of experience in residential. I've had roofers and brick masons investigate. We have an area gutted in the garage where we can see the back side of the brick. The plywood sheeting was rotten on the studs when we gutted this area. Keep in mind this is a modern home designed and owned by an architect. He decided it would be a good idea to have a brick upper porch by his front door. This upper porch also extends around the side of this house OVER the first bay of the garage - -which is where we have gutted from the interior. Wow..bad idea on the architect's part. By the way, we're "peeling layers" in various areas of the house to fix many things including this porous mortar/brick. There is no Tyvek on the house (about a 25 year old home). Just felt paper sheeting over the plywood. Water testing with power washers and water hose have been done on the roof, at windows, etc. We've gutted other interior areas of the home and haven't discovered any damage to the interior walls. We've never had water coming into the house - -even at the basement level. However, in another area of the garage (not under a sidewalk!), I have seen water on the floor after days of hard rain. The brick/mortar is simply leaking when there is a wind driven rain or if it pours rain for consecutive days. I've done extensive research on permeability (WVT etc). I've always believed we should let brick breathe. I've heard so many nightmare stories where brick wasn't prepped or painted correctly, or perhaps a leak was coming from the roof or a window and getting behind painted brick. I've also researched Romabio mineral paint and love the product; however, I have to stop this water penetration. So, I've proceeded with products from Foxfire Enterprises Inc. (based in San Antonio). They have brick/concrete cleaning, as well as waterproofing products. The cleaners are amazing by the way. Their products are environmentally friendly and apparently you can even drink the cleaning products (wouldn't try that, but the company owner has!). This company was hired to waterproof the Playboy Mansion and went up against other waterproofing products in a test before they were the ones selected to do such a huge and historically significant job. Furthermore, every Walt Disney World building is now "spec'd" with Foxfire. Meaning their builders are required to apply Foxfire products to their buildings. The product I've used penetrates the mortar up to inches and hardens like glass. We've had to come back with two coats on that area below the sidewalk (which is above the garage door). So far it is stopping most of the rain penetration but not all. The penetrating sealer needs a certain amount of mortar in the vertical joints between bricks to really take hold. Some of mine don't have that. Furthermore, the brick itself is porous and this product doesn't leave a coating on the brick. Some of it penetrates, but not much. So, apparently I've sealed up the mortar but not the brick, at this point. We are probably going to apply a third coat of the penetrating sealer around this problem area and see if third time's the charm. We've looked for cracks, but maybe we're missing something. The penetrating sealer does span small hairline cracks, but again, we may be missing something. I'm also going to do a test in a more simple (just vertical brick) area on the other side of the garage to see if I can get water to penetrate and show up on the floor. So what about the actual surface of the brick? If you use a Foxfire penetrating sealer, you need to top coat it with their "surface sealer" (which needs to be reapplied probably every 5 years). Then you've actually waterproofed the brick, in addition to the mortar (which really needed that first step of applying the penetrating sealer). Instead of doing step 2 and applying the "surface sealer", the other option is to prime/paint it after you've done the penetrating sealer. This is where I'm at. I know the penetrating sealer isn't stopping every drop of water. I'm going to call the company and see how permeable the surface sealer is. I know the perms of the various primers/paints. And you're right, they aren't very "breathable", but I'm not sure I have a choice. I bet if I use Loxon primer or Loxon Block Surfacer primer and then Sherwin Williams Duration exterior latex, I'd stop the water penetration. I also know my brick/mortar won't breathe very well if I do that. If water somehow gets behind the brick in the future (roof leak; window leak etc), I'm in trouble. I also don't know if Romabio would work over the Foxfire penetrating sealer. Apparently the Foxfire penetrating sealer doesn't leave a coating on the surface, but Romabio also needs to penetrate into the mortar from what I've read. I would like to see these two Texas companies work together and test their products' compatibility. I'm not planning on using any metallic wallpaper, but I was going to use some wallpaper in bathrooms, for example. Now I'm reconsidering that because I'm not sure if any wallpaper breathes (metallic or not). We are tuck pointing a few areas. And yes, we are also using NP1 caulk in a few areas. This caulk is pretty darned solid. I'm confident it will last a long time, but by using it, you're creating future maintenance. If this caulk fails, I know...water will go in and now the brick is sealed up and not breathing that well! So, let me pose this question....what if you water proof your brick as David Jensen suggests above, but you place a large number of weep holes around the perimeter of your house and above the window lintels to at least allow for some "breathability"? Anyone want to chime in on that method? It's been a long process off and on for two years for me to come to this conclusion. If anyone has experience who can help others, I'd love to hear. Thanks.