Interior Paint that Fades? | Southwest FL Painting

“Ron, you painted my condo last year and I believe your crew missed one of the walls that were supposed to be painted.  The other two rooms that they painted turned out so well, it is hard to believe that they missed this wall in the living room.  Can you come over and look at what I am talking about?”

The above is a phone call I received from one of my clients recently in The Colony in Bonita Springs, Florida.  I immediately returned the phone call to my client and scheduled an appointment to look at what he was talking about.

When arriving at his condo I looked at the area that he was talking about, and I could see a definite color difference between where we were supposed to paint and the walls we did not have to paint.  The two walls were supposed to match – but they did not.

I was puzzled, and surprised that my crew had missed an entire wall.  I remember that we had to take the customer’s old paint can to the paint store and get it matched in the exact color and grade of paint, which is what we did as there was one quart of paint missing from the can - yet the paint color did not match.  I told my client we would be back the following Tuesday to repaint the section we were supposed to paint, and also the remaining wall down the hallway so it all matched.

When we arrived to do the painting, my foreman Armando removed all of the pictures from the walls that needed to be painted along with the switch plates.  After we removed everything it is then we figured out exactly what had happened and why my client thought we had not painted the wall.  In actuality we did paint the wall!

We used Benjamin Moore Ultra Spec 500, which is what it was painted with when the condo was built; we just purchased the same grade and color of paint so it would match.  What happened is that the paint covering the spot where the wall was exposed to the light had faded to a green color.  We noticed this when we removed the pictures and switch plates; we could see the original color where the pictures were hanging, but yet the wall around where the picture was had faded.  We also noticed the same thing had happened to where the switch plates were.

What we did for our client is repaint the entire sections of walls that we painted a year earlier and we also painted the adjoining hallway so all the paint colors matched at no charge.  I then asked my client to keep an eye on the wall to see if it fades again – and call me if it did.

I have been painting for over 30 years and this is the first time that I have found a paint to fade like this within one year on the interior of a home, especially with the windows having window tint on them.

I wanted to share this story with homeowners for several reasons.  The paint that I used is a lower grade of paint that is sold by Benjamin Moore.  This is the main reason the paint faded.  When you use lower grades of paint this can happen.  Another thing is that when you use Benjamin Moore paint you have no recourse for accountability.  The stores that sell Benjamin Moore paint are not company-owned stores and there is no accountability.  I have recently realized this on another painting project, where the sales rep from Benjamin Moore would not stand behind their products and instead made excuses to another one of my clients.  That blog will follow in a couple weeks.

When you do interior painting, always use a premium grade of paint.  I always recommend Sherwin Williams Harmony, Super Paint or Cashmere.  Those are the paints that I use 99% of the time unless I have to match a color and grade of existing paint like I had to do on this job.

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