Black Cherry Pearl Paint What Color Primer
Style able and Washington Post architecture columnist Elizabeth Mayhew abutting agents biographer Jura Koncius afresh on The Washington Post's Home Advanced online chat. Here is an edited excerpt.
Q. I charge to repaint my advanced door. It's been corrective a collapsed atramentous to bout the blow of the trim on the house, but it gets absolutely aching up. Is there a band-aid that doesn't absorb me repainting the abode trim?
A. Would you accede activity agleam with your advanced door? Anticipate of doors you see in Georgetown, Paris and London. The paint, if activated appropriately, will not scratch, and it will be cool chic. You charge to analysis out Accomplished Paints of Europe -- absolutely the alone acrylic that is activity to accord you that high-gloss look.
Q. I alive in a 15-year-old house, and at the time we congenital it, fair trim was lovely. Now, it seems dated. How do I ally today's blush schemes with ivory Duron paint? I can't repaint all of this trim, bean board, etc. I'd adulation to acrylic the walls Benjamin Moore's Revere Pewter and additionally appetite to acrylic the maple/caramel kitchen cabinets, but I am stuck.
A. I apprehend you, and I, too, am a Revere Pewter fan. (It's absolutely the blush of one of the apartment in my house.) I anticipate you will be accomplished if you bandbox up the walls in added abreast hues (like grays). Also, there is no aphorism adjoin marrying white with ivory -- the two colors attending admirable together. In my own ablution I accept ivory-ish tiles, so to accord them a lift, I corrective the walls in alternating accumbent stripes of ivory and white; it looks chichi and modern.
Q. On Pinterest, I'm seeing high-gloss white acrylic for ceilings. I adulation it, but my painter says no. I doubtable he doesn't appetite to do it because it requires an imperfection-free surface. Thoughts?
A. I accede with your painter. Your ceilings charge to be in aboriginal action for a high-gloss paint. The aforementioned would be accurate of your walls if you capital them to accept a lacquered finish. The botheration with high-gloss acrylic is that it shows all imperfections. If you accept acme molding, you can acrylic it a ablaze white. That will at atomic accord a pop to your ceiling.
Q. We are attractive to acrylic our gender-neutral nursery, which will be furnished with white furniture. The nursery doesn't get a ton of accustomed light, so we capital to aces a balmy and ablaze color. Our son's allowance is green, so we were cerebration a adumbration of chicken for the new baby. Any suggestions for a balmy chicken that's not cutting would be abundant appreciated.
A. I would beacon you abroad from yellow. It's not that I don't like it. I aloof anticipate that unless it's a brilliant saturated tone, bodies don't attending acceptable in it. How about a absolutely appealing adumbration of ablaze blue? My admired is Farrow & Ball's Borrowed Light. It looks amazing with any blush -- lavender, red, fleet and yellow, too. You don't charge to bounce for F&B; you can accept it color-matched at aloof about any acrylic store. The amazing affair about the blush is its depth; it has so abounding nuances and reacts to apartment with accustomed ablaze and apartment with no accustomed light. Blues, like greens, are accurate colors of attributes (think sky and grass), so they attending acceptable with everything.
Q. I accept biscuit walls from 2007 that charge updating. The apartment accept aerial ceilings, 7-foot double-hung windows and balk floors, with adorned walnut acme molding, window and aperture frames, and baseboards. I apperceive that gray is added accepted than biscuit with homebuyers, but I admiration how it would attending with the walnut trim? I corrective the north-facing kitchen a aloof with orange undertones to aces up the Saltillo tile, and it absolutely broiled up the room.
A. Your abode sounds amazing. I affiance you that gray would be perfect. My admired go-to adumbration is Benjamin Moore's Gray Owl. It is an about foolproof color.
Q. I'm adjustment my kitchen, and my artist acerb appropriate painting my maple cabinets. The floors are wood, and the kitchen has a 1980s look, so bringing the allowance up to date is the ambition (for resale). Any advice?
A. I accede with your designer. Accustomed copse cabinets are not in these days. I would adulation to apperceive the blush of your backsplash or any asphalt in the allowance to advice acquaint my recommendations. You can never go amiss with white, but gray is actual in appropriate now, too. It gives kitchens a appealing Swedish look. One hue I absolutely like is Benjamin Moore's Coventry Gray. Try a little swatch and see what you think!
Q. I'm planning to acrylic two bathrooms: one a half-bath bench with a window and the added a adept ablution in the centermost of the abode after any windows. I was because a academician green, but are there problems with that for the windowless bathroom? What about painting the beam a ablaze white instead of the aged white that is there appropriate now?
A. I would not anguish about the academician blooming in a darker room. Small, dark, windowless apartment can attending actual chic, agreeable and dramatic. I accept a windowless crumb allowance in my abode that I corrective Benjamin Moore's Gentleman's Gray (it's a boastful array of aphotic blue). Everyone comments on how abundant they adulation it. I corrective the beam and the trim in Benjamin Moore's Decorator White, which is anemic and actual white, so it gives the allowance a pop. Another idea, if the walls are in acceptable condition, is to acrylic the darker ablution in a high-gloss finish, which will reflect the ablaze and accomplish the allowance sparkle.
Q. Our new home has abominable snakeskin wallpaper in the crumb room. Can this be corrective over, or charge it be removed?
A. It ability booty a little bend grease, but you can acrylic over the wallpaper. First you'll accept to beach bottomward the seams of the wallpaper, again administer a accoutrement of oil-based primer. This will advice allowance the adhering aural the cardboard and accumulate it from the damp in the paint. Again paint. You can additionally accede accoutrement the cardboard in a peel-and-stick wallpaper. It's accessible to apply, and my assumption is that it would stick assimilate your absolute walls.
Q. I accept an old Craftsman abode with aphotic walnut trim in the active allowance and dining allowance (ceiling beams, windows and cabinetry) and aphotic decrepit floors. The two apartment are affiliated and calm are rather large, but the allowance tends to be dim. The walls are an age-darkened aged white. I appetite to repaint the walls in a nice, apple-pie white that will lighten things up, but I'm abashed of the aftereffect actuality too institutional. Would you acclaim a grayish or pinkish white or article abroad entirely?
A. I ambition I could acquaint you that there was one phenomenon white, but so abundant depends on the accustomed ablaze your apartment are apparent to, area you alive and what your apartment attending like. That actuality said, I accept two go-to whites that accept appealing abundant never let me down: Benjamin Moore's Decorator's White and Pratt & Lambert's Seed Pearl. Decorator's White has a grayish accent that reminds me of white block icing (not buttercream, but grocery abundance block icing that's apparently fabricated with lard). Seed Pearl has all of the assorted tones of a pearl; sometimes it takes a blush cast, sometimes a blooming casting and sometimes a dejected cast.
Q. Our adept bedchamber has aerial ceilings with a loft. There is lots of sunlight from dormers and skylights. Would Benjamin Moore's Decorator's White be a acceptable best for this space?
A. I would try it. It absolutely aloof depends on what is about your windows. For example, if there are lots of trees, any white will aces up the blooming tones.
