Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Excessively Happy Yellow

Four days before Christmas, as if there wasn't enough to do already, I decided to paint our dining room yellow. (Our dining room has been Ming Red forever.) It just so happens that Lowe's has been running an ad on TV about their paint brand with built in primer. They also have been running a commercial about matching paint colors.

First step was to find the perfect yellow, Sherwin Williams' Daffodil - a lovely, stately, happy yellow. Not wanting to be stuck painting two or even three coats of paint, I took the tiny paint color sample to Lowe's to ask if they could match the paint in their brand that includes the primer. Lowe's assured me, with great confidence, that they were paint wizards. Of course, they could match "daffodil" in the primer paint. One coat would be all it would take.


So, armed with the confidence of Lowe's advertising, I started painting, wanting a fresh, clean, bright look by Christmas. The first noticeable thing that happened when applying the paint was that the color was bright, even for me. (I've named it "excessively happy yellow.") The second noticeable thing was that the Lowe's claim that their paint would cover existing paint in one coat was not true at all.

Eight hours and two coats of paint later, that Ming Red still shows through in places. What I need to do is put the house in order before Christmas. But the house is out of sorts anyway, so do I use the 1/2 inch of leftover paint in the bottom of the existing can and touch up see-through spots on the wall? (Will it be enough?) Do I go buy the original daffodil color from Sherwin Williams and paint the entire room a third time? Or do I just leave it be and say it's good enough?


Worth noting, once upon a time, my dad said that one could use toothpaste instead of caulk or sheetrock mud to fill in small holes before painting. I took his advice. Thanks to dad, the walls smell minty fresh.

2 comments:

There she goes! said...

Oh, that is yellow. Maybe it will, um, mellow?

We used the toothpaste trick at the dorms at Rice, too. Glad to know it was a time-tested technique!

Sarah Hazel said...

There's nothing mellow about this yellow. As far as the toothpaste goes, if one is filling in holes on a wall, gleem is better than aim.