Painting walls semi-gloss for rental?
BM makes a great line of paint. it is pricey so you can save a few bucks getting it color matched at Home D. I would stick to semi-gloss for the baseboards, doorways and trim and then maybe a Satin or egg-shell for the walls. Semi-gloss on the walls will scream 1970’s tenement. Also depending on the renter they may want to paint the rooms a color they like and with Semi-gloss you may involve everyone in deglossing the color which will be a nightmare. Be sure to put into your lease that if a tenant wants to paint the walls it has to match in finish and you can have the last say on color. For my rentals I keep a light color palette from Decorator’s white to a light Stormy greige but no reds, dark blues, browns etc. It has made life easier for everyone and when an apartment turns over the tenant is responsible for painting the walls back to the original Decorator’s white or Simply White by BM. In short, no to the semi-gloss on the walls (or ceilings).
BKALLDAY
in General Discussion 5 years and 11 months ago
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rwood | 5 years and 11 months ago
I’m reading online for recommended paint to use on a rental (walls). Some recommend semi-gloss because of the ease of cleaning. I thought semi-gloss is better for trim? What do you use for your rentals? Is Benjamin Moore recommended? I’m planning on doing the painting and would like to get a paint that applies easy and has good coverage. Thank you.
stevecym | 5 years and 11 months ago
if you are looking for coverage and either have damage (marks and repairs) to cover, prime first. and this is what i would do, have the primer tinted. you can say that to the store “i am painting the walls with (color) please tint the primer to that”. if the paint store or “painter” you are dealing with does not know what you are talking about when you say “tint”, go elsewhere. once primed, you can apply the paint and if the primer had been tinted, you might very well cover the walls in one coat (the painter has to apply a uniform amount of paint and with no skips). if these walls do not have marks or repairs, you may not have to prime.
be aware that if you are trying to cover marks such as crayon or pen, regular wall primer will not be enough. you will have to use alcohol based primer first. you can spot prime with such a primer and then go over that with wall primer.
in so far as the texture of the paint, in the not so distant past, Ben Moore had Flat, Semi, and Gloss. Somewhere they added Eggshell followed by Pearl and finally, about 10 years ago, th ey brought out Matt. the Matt is supposedly washable and it what we use on our walls in this house. looks good as well. to me, Semi might be too glossy for a discerning tenant. they might think it looks like a rental. so if you do not think the matt is high enough, perhaps the next one up, maybe the eggshell, i can’t recall. let’s see what others say about the matt though for clean ability.
in so far as brands. if i am painting the inside of a door or entry on a house, the default is Ben Moore. however, i have had customers ask for Pratt and Lambert and Sherwin Williams and i do not think there is anything wrong with these. I don’t like sherwin williams only because they have limited locations so if i need some fast while on a job, i have to travel. i have never used that product from our favorite big box store and would never bring it to a customer’s – i think the name is Behr or something. since i have never used it i am not free to comment on it but someone on here once said it will look poor in a couple years.
i hope to see what others say about the matt finish.
slopefarm | 5 years and 11 months ago
I would think you don’t need to worry about cleaning the rental walls. When the tenant moves out, you will freshen up the walls with a new coat. that’s what we do. Keep it simple – flat for the walls, satin or semi for the trim. Sherwin Williams flat is pretty washable.
NeoGrec | 5 years and 11 months ago
Semi gloss is too shiny for walls, imho. Benjamin Moore’s matte and eggshell finishes have very low sheen (but are not completely flat) and clean up well. That’s what we’ve used for our rental walls. Go to their website for more details. Or better yet, retailers like Pintchik have a printed brochure with little squares of the actual paint so you can really see the differences.
stevecym | 5 years and 11 months ago
I should have mentioned the economics as to why i suggested using tinted primer for a first coat in my reply above. If you are doing an entire, large apartment and you know you will need two coats, the primer is much cheaper than the Ben Moore Regal line. i do this in my own house only if i know 1. i need a second coat anyway; 2. I will not have enough paint left over in the first gallon to apply a second coat (so i would otherwise have to buy a second gallon anyway) or i know i will need a primer to hide things (and keep in mind what i said above about not all primers hiding all things).
tinting primer is a legitimate practice in the trade thought i am not sure all paint stores appreciate it as it is a way out of purchasing that second gallon (or five gallon pail) of high end paint. i have had push back a couple of times from stores telling me they don’t tint primer.
rwood | 5 years and 11 months ago
Steve, thank you for your thorough responses here and in other posts, I greatly appreciate your expertise and insight in the forum.
brokelin | 5 years and 11 months ago
Renters are people, too – I would never rent a place painted in semi-gloss – I would turn around and walk right out as soon as I walked in. Most renters paying rent would. Semi-gloss is for trim only.
That said, I like to be able to wash smudges off my walls – I painted the place I bought in eggshell, if memory serves – I could wash off the occasional food/drink spill, squashed bug, or scuff mark, and the walls looked so good when I sold the place 8 years later that I didn’t need to repaint – just washed off marks, touched up a few areas when I’d chipped the paint. You need to use good paint (Ben Moore), and do two coats. Use a creamy off-white – no bright white and no beige or tan – an off-white with a warm not cool (not blueish, or pinkish) undertone – something that the paint swatches of look good in the light the apartment gets when taped to the walls. The right one will be obvious.
stevecym | 5 years and 11 months ago
@rwood: thank you for acknowledging me. since you did that i will add this:
i am in line with what others are saying about semi gloss. not only does it not look right on a wall, but the higher the gloss level, the more imperfections show up on the wall. when i do woodwork, i love it when the customer says “oh, and we want low lustre”.
years ago i had to have the interior walls of a commercial space repainted. every time you do that, it is a good idea to correct some imperfections (hence my assumption that some priming will be needed). but if this is a rental or a commercial space, you are not going to want to make perfect walls over night. so what did i do? i had them painted with flat. my boss questioned my thinking because the eggshell would have been “washable” but it would have shown all the poor spackling work and the walls in question had been built-out fast and the joint work reflected so.
there is something else i have to add here. i said Ben Moore is my default. yes, its a good product and its easy to get. Others on here have me ntioned Sherwin Williams and someone said that the flat is washable. Keep an open mind about Sherwin Williams. they have been around as long as Ben Moore and there are people who swear by them and if they had a couple more locations, i would explore using more of their product. The real reason i think people use Ben Moore as much as they do is that Moore has market presence and they do this by controlling their vendors and some of this sometimes sounds questionable. as end users, we all know competition is a good thing.
slopefarm | 5 years and 11 months ago
steve, I mentioned SW. We just repainted and our painter recommended SW. They will match anyone’s colors, too, even for sample jars. Our painter likes the bases they use better than B. Moore. We were lucky SW opened around the corner but our painter sourced in NJ anyway. Of course, too soon to tell how it holds up.
cate | 5 years and 11 months ago
We have always used eggshell for the walls and semi-gloss for the trim. I have used many paint brands and vastly prefer above all others Benjamin Moore’s Fresh Start latex primer and separate wall paint (good or best quality) from Janovic — not the paints that combine primer and paint together in one product. It has a great brush feel, excellent coverage, is relatively long lasting in the can, has high quality color, and is durable.
stevecym | 5 years and 11 months ago
@slope, sorry for not acknowledging you in that post. when i was in another region of the country, sherwin dominated. there is a SW on Broadway in Woodside/Elmhurst; not easy to get to when the work is in Brooklyn.
@cate: janovic was, i think, Ben Moore’s attempt to control the paint market in NYC. in the late 1990’s ben bought Janovic (and janovic had been buying up smaller mom and pops such as Wolfe’s in Hells Kitchen). i do not think the marriage lasted but all this consolidation is worrisome (see the post about the elevator service companies the other day) not so much as a cost issue, but to me, driving competition out eliminates diversity and quality of product. some of the smaller, old line companies produce or produced or carried some niche products that those of us working in older buildings and trades really need; Ben Moore only wants its products on the shelves.