Tool Time Tales

The new dishwasher is fantastic. I think I can hear a quiet choir of angles singing, "Ahhh--AHHH---ahhh---ooooo" when I open it.

Maybe only in my mind, but still.

It actually cleans the dishes. (Wonder of wonders!) And they're dry when it's done!

Magic.

I've also become someone who has opinions about paint brands. And because this is my blog and all six of you who come here are gluttons for punishment, I will now regale you with said thoughts.

My least favorite is Benjamin Moore. I wanted to love it. I love that they only distribute to smaller retailers. I love their colors. Their website is easy to use.

And yet.

Their paint is thin. It drips. It splatters when you roll.

And maybe you're saying that's user error, but it's not a problem I have with any other paint brand.

And when it comes to covering the grey on our walls, the Benjamin Moore paint required three coats.

Middle of the road is Sherwin Williams. (Or Sherman Willhelm as hubby has taken to calling them. Why? No ideal. But there it is.) Their paint doesn't drip, but it does splatter when rolling if you're not uber careful and slow. They have an app. (Because of course they do.) And that's kind of fun, except also I'd rather just look on their website at colors.

You can buy some of their colors at Lowes. But the rest (read: majority) you have to go to an actual SW store. And I think I mentioned here how much trouble we had finding a store that had the correct base so that we could actually buy the paint we wanted. (If I didn't, let's just say it was a multi-week, multi-store operation that was significantly frustrating.)

It needed two coats of Sherman Williams to cover the grey.

Most favorite? Valspar. From Lowes.

It covers in one coat.

The paint is thicker than the other two, so it's not dripping on the wall or making big splatters when you roll, even if you get going at a decent clip.

It covers in one coat, did I mention that?

And then there's the ease of acquiring it. Because we're going to be at Lowes for other things anyway, so it saves a trip elsewhere.

Of course, even after all of that, I'm eyeballing some Benjamin Moore colors for the school/music room. But I might take the paint chips over to Lowes and see what they have that's close enough. (I don't do color matching at Lowes, because they frankly suck at that.) And of course, the neutral for halls and stairs that I chose is Benjamin Moore, so it's not as if I'm never using them again, for all that I don't like them as much as the other options.

And now, I should be off to help the hubs install a new fan/light combo in the bedroom, because for whatever reason, the prior owners weren't fans (ha) of lights that actually made it possible to do silly things like see in the room when it was night.