I’m no Handy Manny so when my wife suggested we paint our home’s exterior a year ago I cringed because I’m clueless about DIY stuff and my wife is notoriously both picky and indecisive. Even after driving by many homes we liked in our neighborhood for color ideas, my wife and I remained at an impasse. She wanted totally new colors (grey and teal) and I preferred to simply refresh our home’s bright yellow.
PICKING YOUR HOME’S COLOR
In order to settle our paint debate, we headed to one of our local Sherwin-Williams stores and met with Lead Sales Specialist, Willy Cordero, who has more than eight years experience and a terrific sense of humor.
I like bright, happy colors. My wife likes more elegant colors. She also has a penchant for changing something she loves just for the sake of change. I knew coming into Sherwin-Williams that even staying in the proximity of the colors we already had at home was going to be a deal breaker for her.
Angela and I looked at various color wheels, and Willy showed us color combinations that are trending right now (grey-related hues among them).
To help us get a sense of how a color might look like in different light, Sherwin-Williams has a very useful tool that lets you view colors under natural light and indoors.
After months of debate, Angela and I settled on two finalists. She picked a light greenish paint, and I chose a burnt yellow one.
Next we put the colors inside Sherwin-Williams’ AccuColor machine to view them under natural, outdoor light and indoor light. Willy advised that the best way to evaluate color is to actually test them in the home so he went to the back of the paint warehouse and quickly mixed the colors we selected. In less than 10 minutes Willy came back with two small, fresh canisters of Sherwin-Williams Color to Go (1 quart sample costs about $6.99).
If you’ve ever wondered what color you get by mixing all of them, this is your answer: dark mud green.
As soon as we got home we put the two colors to test. The winning color? My wife’s light green selection, of course! (Women always get their way!)
MORE PAINT TIPS
Here are some other tips and tricks we learned by visiting our Sherwin-Williams store:
Whenever you can consider purchasing the Sherwin-Williams premier paint, Emerald, because it’s the most durable one, has the most thickness, and keeps color looking fresher longer. Some people figure that if they’re buying premium-type paint like Emerald they don’t need to prime because it’s so thick. While it’s not mandatory to prime, even with a brand like Emerald it is still recommended because primer provides an extra layer of paint protection.
While at Sherwin-Williams, you may want to do what we did and sign up for the Paint Perks program. It’s free and you get several important benefits:
- Savings on paints and supplies every time you visit the store
- Exclusive sale alerts
- A $10 off coupon when you sign up
- Management of your paint project and the ability to store your color and paint purchase information for 10 years
So there you have it folks. This is how a visit to Sherwin-Williams rescued my wife and I from a major impasse over the paint color of our house. Now comes the fun part: actually painting the house! That’s part two of this story.
DISCLAIMER: Sherwin-Williams compensated me for this post but the opinions expressed in this story are solely mine.
Noticias Newswire 
