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It can be rough picking paint colors, but people seem to have the hardest time picking white paint. Today I&#;m sharing my secret formula for the best white paint color EVER. If you are looking for white paint for your house, or your kitchen cabinets, or your furniture (see how to paint furniture here!) You will not be disappointed!
Have you ever picked a white color, only to have it turn pink, gray, or blue?
Check out the swatches below, on the wooden table they all look white, right?
Now check out those exact same colors on a white background.
Definitely not pure white. To me the perfect white is just white. Not yellowish, not bluish, not grayish, just white. Its not too bright or too dingy, its JUST WHITE.
The formula is Sherwin-Williams Extra White Base + 3oz. of white pigment /gallon
(It has to be Sherwin-Williams, other white bases seem to make the color too bright.)
I have used this formula in every room that I&#;ve done since . It looks good everywhere!
Entryway at the Merc
Dylan&#;s Small World Room
Living Room Makeover
Buttoned-Up Boho Bedroom
At my local store its called Mandi White (if you&#;re in St. George you can go into any of the stores and they&#;ll mix it up for you!) After 5 years of calling it Mandi White I asked Sam (the manager that answers all of my weird questions) if this was a real Sherwin-Williams color and they we&#;re just humoring me and calling it Mandi White (you know, like when someone calls you by the wrong name for so long that you can&#;t correct them and will eternally be Mindy when you&#;re around them?)
This is what he said. There is in fact NOT a color with the same formula.
YAY!! Who wants to start a petition to have Mandi White added to their official list of colors!?!
The closest &#;real color&#; is Pure White SW . With Pure White they add a little bit of black to the extra white base to grey it out a teeny bit. With Mandi White the white pigment does sort of the same thing, its just a touch brighter.
If you use this color in your house upload a picture to instagram and hashtag it #mandiwhite
With competitive price and timely delivery, Pairs Horses Chemical sincerely hope to be your supplier and partner.
What are you painting?! I&#;ve got a tutorial for it!
What is the best white paint out there? What is there to think about when it comes to white paint? Is there even a best white paint?
The first time I ever gave any thought to the subject, I really had no clue that there were so many aspects to consider. So let&#;s dive in and have a look at what makes a white paint white, and what to consider when purchasing white paints.
Yes and no. There are two types of bases for paints that you mix. The white bases are used for mixing lighter colors and the clear bases are used for darker colors. Most companies produce three to four different main bases. They&#;ll be labeled differently by each manufacturer, but will be similar to white, medium, dark and neutral. Some companies will even produce specialty bases to help achieve colors that wouldn&#;t otherwise be possible.
Then, pigment (AKA tint or colorant) is added to the base paints to produce the desired color. You can mix in the tints yourself, but this isn&#;t advisable unless you really know what you are doing. A good paint isn&#;t just about the tint, it&#;s about the additives and how well everything meshes together. Many big name paint companies have been around since the &#;s; they&#;ve been working on their recipes a long time!
Let&#;s say you are wanting to save money and just buy base paint. It looks white and you&#;re not that picky about the shade of white. Unfortunately the tints in paint also help with coverage. So if you found a base paint that for some reason was just the most magical color in the world to you, GREAT! You can paint with it, but be prepared to put on more than the two standard coats to get full coverage. But, you won&#;t end up saving money going this route.
High hide and beefed up paints are just paint with extra pigment. Like I mentioned earlier, pigment is what is added to base paint to give it color and to help with coverage. Adding extra pigment to a paint, or beefing it up, helps cover a surface in less coats.
Hi Hide is PPGs number one selling product, and is very popular amongst DIYers. It has high coverage, provides a durable coat, covers what underneath and allows for good looking touch up work!
White can be a really hard color to paint over. That doesn&#;t really make sense when you first think about it, but I&#;ll go over that. Like I talked about earlier, base paint for lighter colors is white, compared to clear bases for darker pigments. That white base contains a larger percentage of titanium dioxide which is responsible for increasing the opacity of the paint. Higher opacity means less transparency.
So you would think that white base paint would cover better than a dark color with less of those ingredients, but this isn&#;t always the case. The pigments that get added to the paint are also a big contributor to getting the paint to cover in two coats. That&#;s why you&#;ll find white paints that don&#;t have much pigment don&#;t cover well, similar to how dark colors with very little white in them also do not cover well. The colors that tend to have the best coverage are the ones in the middle of the spectrum that have both properties.
A lot of people are saying Benjamin Moore&#;s Chantilly Lace is the best white for coverage because it has a neutral undertone.
Another really popular one is Sherwin Williams Extra White, but it has a little more cooler undertones than Chantilly Lace.
Ultimately, you should go with whichever white you like the most.
If you strictly want a white that will cover well, check with the manufacturer or store and ask them if they can add pigment to their white based paint to make it a Hi hide or beef&#;d up white. Some manufactures will have premixed white paints ready to go that are designed specifically to cover better.
Another note unrelated to the actual color of the white, but you get what you pay for. If you go with a super cheap paint, it won&#;t be as durable and won&#;t take touch ups as kindly as a nicer paint would.
Again, color is really just preference. Chantilly Lace is also really popular for cabinets. One of the most important things to think about is how much light you have near your cabinets. If you are getting lots of natural light, you can decide on preference. A lot of interior designers might say that flat or matte finishes look more natural and can compliment your cabinets very well. On the other hand, if you are not getting much natural light in that area, then going with a higher sheen paint would be better. Those really help to brighten up an area that is heavily reliant on artificial light.
If you own a painting company, and your client wants to go with a white paint, but they don&#;t really care what it is, even after you&#;ve explained the subtle differences between hues and sheens, I&#;d say just pick the paint with the best bang for your buck. So take into consideration the price of the paint, and the coverage. Go with something that has a natural undertone so that it does a better job covering in less coats. Going with a low sheen is also a good idea, because it will make application way easier, as well as touch up work.
Like I&#;ve already mentioned a couple times, Hi Hide by PPG is a great type of paint to use because it hits on all the points that I was just talking about.
No, white primer is not the same as white paint. Primer is used to help bond paint to a surface that paint would not adhere very well to. The primer acts as a middleman between the surface and paint, bonding well to both and ensuring a more durable finish.
What if you really love the way it looks after you put up primer and want to leave it that way? Fact of the matter is, that the primer won&#;t stay looking like that for long. It&#;s not made to withstand the test of time as a finish the way paint does. If left as a finish coat, primer will break down into a chalky material. It also does a poor job protecting the surfaces. For example, if you had dust on your painted wall, you could wipe it off with a damp rag. If you did that on your primed wall, you&#;d just mash the dust into a wet glob that just keeps getting worse the more you mess with it.
Also, primer doesn&#;t protect your walls from odor like paint would, so odors associated with cooking or pets could linger longer, or worse, become the way your home smells. Trust me, just use paint as a finish. And, the general rule of thumb is, get paint on primer within thirty days.
I had to look that one up, and people got all sorts of answers. Some say 900, others say over 150K. In my opinion, there is no set number. The potential for shades of white is limitless. It&#;s the sort of thing you could get ridiculous about, saying well these two look the same to the naked eye but are technically different because different amounts of pigment were used. Benjamin Moore for example, has over 150 shades of white to pick from. Fact of the matter is, there are enough shades of white, that you should be able to find what you are looking for.
If you were to ask a bunch of interior designers how they would decide what kinds of whites to pick, you&#;d get two main answers. You can pick whites with warm hues or cool hues. Warms would include more natural undertones like brown, gold or orange.
Cool hues include blues and grays.
The first method would be to match your paints to the general ambience of your home. If you have a rustic vibe with lots of wooden or leather furniture then warm hues can compliment that look really well. If you have a more modern design, then picking cooler hues would compliment that better. It would help to create a sense of flow in your living space.
The other point of view would say, create some contrast. If you like areas of stark contrast in your home, mix it up. Throw some natural hues in with your modern home and see what you think! I know some people will probably argue with what I&#;m saying here, but it doesn&#;t really matter what they say, cause it&#;s your home.
As I would recommend with any color of paint, go ahead and buy some samples and put them up in different areas of your home. Make sure to take pictures of how they look at different times of the day. It&#;s important to do this so that you can get an idea of how the hues will come out depending on lighting conditions. This is particularly important to do with whites because hues are especially evident in white paints.
A common question we hear is, why do light colors last longer on the exterior of homes compared to darker, richer colors?
Whites and off-whites last longer than colorful paint for a few reasons. First of all, they use inorganic pigments that take longer to break down than the organic pigments used in richer, more colorful paints. Pigments break down when they are continually exposed to high UV radiation, so desert or even worse, high desert climates with high UV index will take the highest toll on exterior paint jobs.
Another reason that whites and off whites do so well is that they reflect a lot more light than darker colors do. That means that the lighter colors absorb less light than the darker colors. Well, what does that mean in practical terms? That means that the lighter colors will get less hot than the darker ones resulting in slower break down time.
And last but not least, white base paints associated with the whites and lighter colors contain high amounts of titanium dioxide, which is one of the active ingredients used in mineral based sunscreen. That helps to reflect extra UV radiation.
Hopefully you end the day having a little more knowledge about white paints. As always, feel free to drop us any questions in the comments below or shoot us an !