Paint Worth the Price? Valspar, Duron, Behr, and Ralph Lauren Review

I know I’ve mentioned a good experience before with the Valspar paints, but I do have a couple of things to add…We used the Valspar primer over deep, deep red walls. While it wasn’t what I would call “full” coverage– you could still see a little red– it was absolutely enough to knock down the red. We were able to paint a fairly light color (Using Valspar Signature with an Eddie Bauer color) and probably could have gotten away with one coat, had we been a bit more thorough the first go round (using better lighting, and checking more carefully after our ten year old’s work, which was still great!). No red in sight! We went with the Signature paint over their standard or the Olympic (?) on the recommendation of the salesman, a guy I was friends with in high school and who has been working in paint for 8 or 10 years now. I trusted him not to pull a fast one.

They also run a lot of specials with $5 rebates per can. I received my 4 rebates in one check very promptly. I’ve been really happy with the experience overall. Now, Sherwin Williams, on the other hand: thin and overpriced. But they were one of the few places where I could get a low VOC oil-based trim paint.

Guess they’ve all got pros and cons…

Absolutely– my mother helped her sister-in-law paint a door with Valspar and it left drips all over the door…not a great experience! I guess it’s project to project and person to person.

As for the SW paint, we used the “Classic99,” their low-end line, and it was really streaky and thin and cost quite a bit more than the Valspar. I had assumed that the Duron would be better, but it sounds like it has its own problems!

Hi Maya,
Welcome to One Project Closer!
I felt the same about Behr - it worked great so never tried anything else, until my recent experiment. Let me know if you end up trying a new brand. I’ll be interested to see if you found similar results.

No matter what paint I use, I’m stingy with what goes on the brush and roller, so I end up having to put on many coats. But I feel better about not having “wasted” paint and being thorough.

Hey Josh,
Thanks for your feedback. I will post pix next time - just didn’t get my act together fast enough. I believe the home office will be featured as a before/after in the near future, so check back.

That’s interesting that Behr came off the walls, even after months. I will keep an eye out for that.

Please let me know if you try out Ralph Lauren and what your results were. I plan on trying Benjamin Moore for my next project. Is there any specific type of BM paint you recommend?

THANKS!

I used Behr in my kitchen and when I had spatters and scrubbed them, I found the paint came off, but not the grease. It was so terrible, I had to repaint my kitchen. I used Ralph Lauren paint, which went on really well and is very scrubbable. I would never use Behr again on anything.

hey everybody
i have got a question for somebody to answer what would be the best paint to use on a house i am starting to build and i have some up grades and we are going to paint the house some different colors and i know one of the colors is a deep red and most of the others are like a deep brown and some gray this is the first time to really get into this and i need some help finding the right paint for my house im just coming back from iraq and my wife is at home doing the picking and choosing and i really dont want the builder to give her a scam by getting the most expensive kind to not look very well and flake at the end thanks for all the inputs

sam - you’ll find that everyone has a different opinion on paint, so the “right” one can be hard to find. We’ve done numerous paint tests here and have found Ralph Lauren to far outperform any of their competitors for paint. Jocie recently did a comparison of primers and found Behr’s primer to be the best at covering over red paint. That said, it seems like almost everyone has something they really like, or really *don’t* like.

[...] decided to go with  Ralph Lauren brand paint. I read a good comparrison article about 4 paint brands over at One Project Closer. So I headed to Home Depot since Lowes doesn’t carry Ralph Lauren. [...]

Hi Misty,
Thanks for your thoughtful comments!
So, Home Depot will soon offer 8 oz samples (for free or low cost) so you can try out the paint first before buying the full can??? Wow, hat would be great!

I wish someone had told me about tinted primers before I originally painted my red dining room - that would have saved me a lot of hassle. So thanks for the info!

[...] 3. Once the primer has dried, paint each letter. I used Duron, One-coat white because I had some left over from a previous project. Sadly, I needed two coats to provide a more even finish. Make sure the first coat of paint has dried before painting your second coat. For more information on what paint is worth the price, see my paint comparison post. [...]

I need advice on exterior stucco house paint. HD or Lowes?
And which one will be non fading?

I love Behr paint, But the one paintthat I really love is Devine so thick and nice it is like painting with smooth yougrt.

Go green!!! I just used AFM Safecoat & Yolo Colorhouse paints in my home, & they were solid (siongle-coat), completely odorless, & they’re healthy. AFM safecoat can match any color.

Off-gassing should be a major concern for everyone. Formaldehyde (the most common VOC - Volatile Organic Compound), is one of the most common chemicals found in paints, adhesives, & stains, that emits VOCs, which have been proven to cause cancer (yes, those paints are carcinogenic).

Regarding the comments I read about various types of paint, they all reflect the dream that non-painters have; cheap paint that covers in one coat. That is the mythical goal of the general public, coupled with the mindset that any idiot can paint. In fact it is quite simple to apply paint to a surface. Application of material is only one of many steps required to put a good looking and durable finish on a surface. Many of the cons in your article are nothing but situations that the pros deal with day in and day out. When masking tape pulls off your new coat of paint, the fact is that there was never a bond established between your substrate and your finish coat. It could have been due to improper preparation of the substrate, failing to give the new paint the required curing time, incompatibilities between the substrate and finish coat, and numerous other things. Pros recommend using package colors to avoid using deep and ultra-deep tint bases which have little or no pigment and too much colorant, which can cause hiding problems and muddy colors. No knowledgeable painter would ever expect a paint job to be complete with the application of one coat of paint. Surface preparation can include sanding existing surfaces, removing old layers of paint, washing surfaces down with Trisodium Phosphate, applying one or more coats of primer/sealer and so on. Some paints out there probably are a little overpriced, but the old adage- you get what you pay for- is by and large true. More expensive paints have pigments which are ground finer resulting in higher color values, truer hues and consistency of color, tone and hue. Any painting project is 95% preparation and 5% final coat application; proper preparation will always result in a good finish coat appearance.

I use Benjamin Moore and love, love, love the results. I’ve tried all the brands listed in these posts in my previous home, and have had the best results with Benjamin Moore - both interior and exterior. I have a husband, 2 greyhounds, and am a neat-nick, so beauty and durability was a must. I applied 1 coat of kilz primer to all walls in my house (to seal the new drywall which has an orange peel texture). Then I painted the whole interior of the house with several different colors of paint (greens, golds, brown, orange - think Panera Bread) with 2 coats of color in each room. Yes, it was expensive to do the whole house and time consuming to do 2 coats of paint after the 1 coat of primer. However, it has been over 5 years - and lots of scrubbing dog splatter off the walls and cleaning grease off the door to the garage. I don’t have any scuff marks, the paint looks brand new even after all this time, none of the paint peeled off or rubbed off. The exterior paint was put on over an elastomeric primer, and the paint has lasted 7 years in the hot FL sun and hurricanes. I suggest spending the money and taking the extra time to do the job the long way, then sit back and relax for many years to come. Now, if anyone has a remedy for keeping the floors looking nice …