Behr Makes Bathrooms Beautiful!

Recently we renovated our ensuite bathroom and Behr was there to help us along the way! After a number of years with a dreary and dull grey bathroom, our goal was to really liven up the space with a warm mustard yellow to go with our brown flooring and granite counter top.

Our Inspiration: Fall

With the family in tow, we headed to our local Home Depot to meet with Behr Representative Tom Chambers.  Tom was a fountain of knowledge on everything from prepping the room to paint, choosing the perfect colour and household design. We brushed up on our old art classes with a review of the colour wheel and Tom went over with us how to use it as a guide for choosing not only winning colour combinations within the room but also so the whole house flows together. After hearing our concerns with some current mold and dripping walls, Tom was able to advise my husband and I on the best solution to correct the problem and helped us to select the best paint for the job.

We went home with these quality Behr Products:
 

Premium Plus Ultra Interior Stain Blocking Ceiling Paint

This stain-blocking ceiling paint is spatter and drip resistant and specifically designed for ceiling application. Its performance-driven paint and primer in one formulation blocks most household and water stains and dries to form an antimicrobial-mildew resistant film. Featuring advanced NANOGUARD® technology, this product offers excellent stain resistance and improved hiding in fewer coats. It can be used in any room of the house including family rooms, living rooms, dining rooms, kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms and kid’s rooms. Backed by a lifetime guarantee*, the flat sheen hides minor surface imperfections and can be tinted to light colors.

Premium Plus Ultra Semi-Gloss Enamel – For Trim, Door, and Cabinet

BEHR PREMIUM PLUS ULTRA® Semi-Gloss Enamel is a 100% acrylic paint and primer in one with advanced stain-blocking formula that will change the way you paint. This exciting product, featuring NANOGUARD® technology, forms an extra-protective shell that offers outstanding stain, scuff, mar and mildew resistance and an easy-to-clean, STAYS LOOKING NEW LONGER® finish with superior stain removal. This sophisticated color palette delivers exceptional hide and maximum moisture resistance.

Premium Plus Ultra Interior Eggshell Enamel – Paint and Primer in One

BEHR PREMIUM PLUS ULTRA® Eggshell Enamel is a 100% acrylic paint and primer in one with advanced stain blocking formula that will change the way you paint. This exciting product, featuring NANOGUARD® technology, forms an extra-protective shell that offers outstanding stain, scuff, mar and mildew resistance and an easy-to-clean, STAYS LOOKING NEW LONGER® finish with superior stain removal. This sophisticated color palette delivers exceptional hide and maximum moisture resistance.

While Tom had suggested some softer yellow shades, we let him know we weren’t afraid of colour and really wanted to punch this room up with a warm, deep-but-bright mustard shade and in the end we decided on Behr’s SOLAR FUSION.

Knowing that a highly saturated colour would take a good number of coats to achieve, Tom created a  colour building coat, similar to the way a tinted primer would work to help us to build colour faster and in fewer coats. Some colourants are naturally translucent, such as yellows and reds so, Behr develops special “optimized”  formulas for these colours, so that after the initial “optimized” primer coat is applied, only one or two coats of the final topcoat is necessary to achieve an opaque finish.  Some companies suggest applying a “grey” as the tinted primer, but this is not the best approach since the grey undertone alters the final topcoat colour.  Behr’s “optimized” colours are developed from the same colour family as the colour chip selected.  So, for example, Behr’s Solar Fusion UL150-3, which is what I selected, would be achieved with an optimized primer applied in a yellow hue first.  When the final topcoat of the actual Solar Fusion colour is applied, the undertone of the optimized primer works with the topcoat to fully render the selected colour, Solar Fusion.  Avoiding applying a tinted primer will mean you will need to apply multiple coats of paint to achieve “hide.”

We have used dark colours in the past and had to paint layer upon layer of the deep colour to get it to look right, even up to 5 coats! With Behr’s quality paint+primer, you should be able to achieve the perfect shade in less coats, even if you don’t go with the colour building coat. Using the process above, we used one coat of the base and two coats of the Solar Fusion. 

So how did we do? Here is a peek at our Before/After Pics!

From tub looking to doorway, the yellow compliments the brown towels and granite counter top 

The trim, doors and cabinets now pop with a brighter white!

We are very happy with  the new colour and love the way the new hue transformed the room from cold and dreary to warm and inviting. Painting can be a little bit theraputic that way! I love the way the colour changes throughout the day with the light of the sun providing a bright invigorating yellow in the morning and slowly turning into a rich and comforting shade in the evening.  We’ve also had many long hot showers and so far we haven’t seen the slightest bit of running on the walls, it still looks perfect!

Need Assistance Redesigning a Room? Behr Can Help!

 At Home:

The Behr website is a wealth of information and has a really fun and creative tool called ColorSmart by Behr which allows you to choose colours and have the ColorSmart experts create a colour palette for you that will work perfectly together. You can even upload your own photos of the room you plan to decorate into Paint Your Place to see how different colours will look in that space! There is also all kinds of Style Galleries to give you inspiration to kick start your creativity!

 At the Store:

Behr Colour samples are much larger than most and even come with a punch out leaf at the bottom corner, I’d seen this before but never knew why it was there. Tom showed me that you can use these holes to clip colours together with supplied plastic rings so you can see different colour combinations together! We’ll be using this every time for now on! Look for Behr brochures and booklets that show perfectly paired colours to provide inspiration for your room. 

Still not visualizing the new colour? Purchase Color Paint Samples from Behr. 8oz jars are available so you can paint a section of your wall before fully committing, choose from 386 exclusive PREMIUM PLUS ULTRA® colors and over 2,000 PREMIUM PLUS® colors.

My best advice to you, if you have questions about paint, colour combinations or design elements in your project room is to call your local Home Depot store, ask when the Behr Representative will be visiting and plan to drop in during this time. They really do have all the answers when it comes to paint selection and if you come prepared with a room layout and possibly some fabrics you plan on using as well, they will have a better idea of your vision to help you turn it into the room of your dreams!