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How to choose paint

Picking the right paint for your walls can be daunting. This post outlines the steps to choosing the perfect paint for your home. Start by considering the purpose of the room before focusing on colour schemes and quality of the paint. Ensure easy application and maintenance by selecting a high quality finish that can stand the test of time. Additionally, factor in the cost and type of paint for a successful outcome. This post shows you how to make an informed decision when it comes to your colour palettes.

It’s not a secret for anyone that no construction, no repairs are complete without paint. What paint to choose? And most importantly, how? First of all, you need to decide for yourself how high-quality surface you want to get.

If you are not interested in quality, and the question of lack of money is in the first place, then you can skip further, because there are a dime a dozen cheap paints (and varnishes) on the Russian market, and all you need to do is go to the nearest construction market and buy what you need.
To begin with, consider the well-known Dufa paint, produced in Germany, which has long and firmly occupied its niche in the Russian market..

Its advantages include a low cost with a relatively good quality, but we must pay tribute that some domestic manufacturers, recently, are very close to it in quality. The main disadvantage: – only white paint is available; and, if you need a colored one, then you have to buy tubes with dyes, and, at your own peril and risk, tint it yourself. This deliberately reduces the number of possible color shades (and obtaining saturated tones is simply impossible) and makes it impossible to repeat the obtained color with 100% accuracy. So if you are faced with the question “How to achieve good results with a minimum of funds”, then this paint will suit you. Although it is difficult to call it economical. The average price of 10 liters of Dufa paint in Moscow markets ranges from 600 to 650 rubles, while the consumption per liter does not exceed 6 m 2. So it turns out that it will cost you 10 rubles to paint 1 square meter of the surface with Dufa paint. Now let’s turn our attention to the Finnish paints Tikkurila (Tikkurila), which two years ago occupied almost the first place in terms of sales in the Russian market. And it is not surprising, because perhaps a blind person did not see her advertisements on TV, and billboards in Moscow hung at every intersection. The paint is generally good, and all the specialty stores were equipped with tinting machines, which made it possible to get the color you needed “without leaving the checkout.” Problems with Tikkurila began from the moment this paint was released in Russia (under the Tikkolor trademark), and, as is often the case with domestic factories operating under license, the quality has sharply decreased, not so much the quality of the paint itself, but the stability of quality from the batch to the party.

Many builders began to abandon it, at the risk of running into a marriage. The native “Finnish” Tikkurila deserves all praise, the consumption per liter reaches 10 -12 m 2, which is much better than that of Dufa. Let us now consider paints that cannot be classified as “consumer goods”. These are, of course, Bekkers and Akzo Nobel (better known as Crown), produced in Sweden. The main advantages include greater efficiency than the previously described Dufa and Tikkurila. On average, the consumption of one liter of Bekkers and Akzo Nobel paints reaches 12 and 14 m 2, respectively. Although these paints are more expensive than Dufa, due to their economy, the cost of painting 1 m 2 does not exceed 15 rubles. Retail outlets are usually equipped with tinting machines, so you don’t have to worry about choosing the color yourself. The color gamut is quite large (2000 – 2500 colors), in any case, more than that of Tikkurila.

Well, it’s time to talk about the features of tinting (i.e. making colored paints).

In last place, of course, is Dufa and similar paints (Flamingo, Joby), because you will have to tint them yourself, using tinting pastes. It is not possible to get a dark (saturated) color, because then you will need tinting paste almost more than the paint itself. Tikkurila, as a rule, and Bekkers too, is tinted on a tinting machine, which immediately saves you from the headache of color matching. Buying ready-made (colored) paint is profitable only if its color suits you completely (usually, finished colors are 25% cheaper than the same colors obtained on a tinting machine), but since finished paints are produced in a deliberately lower color assortment, then here you may simply not find the color you need. Also, when buying a tinted paint, you need to pay attention not only to the cost of tinting one liter, but also to the area that can be painted with this liter! The fact is that the low cost of paint and the low cost of tinting does not mean that you will be able to save money. Let’s look at an example. Suppose you have a choice: buy paint for 100 rubles, but this paint is enough for 8 m 2, or buy the same paint capacity for 180 rubles, but which is enough for 16 m 2. Naturally, the second option is preferable, so as the cost of painting 1 m 2 with a second paint is cheaper, despite the fact that it seems more expensive. So – think and choose!

That seems to be all that can be said about the main paints in the Russian construction market. Now let’s move on to paints and varnishes that are little known to the Russian consumer. One of these materials is English paints and varnishes produced by the ICI concern under the Dulux trademark (our site is dedicated to them). Dulux is known all over the world, but it so happened that very few paints from England are represented on the Russian market. The fact is that until recently this material was considered “elite” and it was possible to find it in small specialized shops, salons, and selling it in the construction market was considered almost blasphemy (it’s like buying a new Mercedes from the hands and even in a dark alley). And only since the summer of 2001, “Dulux” began to win back its rightful place in the domestic market. The paint itself is expensive, but, as mentioned earlier, it is not so important how much one liter of paint costs, but it is important how much it will cost to paint 1 m 2.

Why is Dulux paint so good? How is it different from other paints? – To many. For example, its economy. Only with Dulux paints the consumption per liter reaches 17-18 m 2, (i.e. 2.5 liters is enough for an area of ​​40 m 2), not to mention varnishes and impregnations for wood where one liter is enough for an area of ​​up to 25 m 2. For comparison, I will say that the cost of 10 liters of paint is 2015r, and the consumption from 10 liters is 160 m 2, therefore the cost of painting 1 m 2 will be equal to 12.5 rubles (only 2.5 rubles more expensive than Dufa ) while the quality of the coating differs by an order of magnitude. I can only say about durability that any Dulux paint can withstand at least 2000 wash cycles without losing color, which other paints cannot boast of. And the shelf life of paint in a tightly closed can is 10 years.

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Comments: 1
  1. Leo Hayes

    Can anyone provide some tips on choosing the right paint for a project? I’m a bit overwhelmed with all the options out there. What factors should I consider when selecting paint? Are there specific brands or types that you would recommend for different surfaces or purposes? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

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