Safe paints that are not too expensive?

[Jen78fl]

Hi all. Well we are going to have to try to sell our house in the near future and will have to do some painting.. With my son and 14 month old DD around, I really want to use a paint that has no VOC's and low odor. I was looking at the benjamin moore paints, in particular the Natura paint, which I thought looked good.. But of course my husband doesnt like that its $60 a gallon since we will probably need about 10 gallons of it! (If it were up to him we would use any kind of paint, hes not too worried about the VOC's). lol

Anyway, We have painted a room before using Sherwin Williams Harmony paint, which has no VOC's, but then of course when you add in the tint to it, that adds VOC's.. The paint didnt smell as strong as regular paint that we have used before but it was still a noticeable smell to me.. So I guess my question is can you even get a truly no VOC, low odor paint once you add in the tint?? I really appreciate any advice on this! Thanks all!

Jennifer

[Ola_]

I haven't used the BM Natura but we used the BM Aura when we did our kitchen/dining room remodel last year. The paint seemed to really go a long way - we calculated exactly what we needed (subtracting windows and other areas that wouldn't be painted) and afterwards we still had 50% of both paint colours left over. I'm not sure if that is just our experience or if others had this happen as well, but I was thinking that potentially could save some money when using this brand (as long as you don't buy too much at first, of course).

It went on beautifully too and often needs fewer coats than "regular" paint so it pays off that way also. For example we did a deep burgundy and it's perfect with 2 coats (no tinted primer). And it's less frustrating IMO than using a cheap paint and then having to do touch ups and redo portions. Natura was not available yet when we painted though, so I only have experience with Aura.

[mom0810]

If it's between the Aura and the Harmony, go with Aura. Harmony is cruddy compared to Aura, very thin and watery and takes many coats. Also, it drips and makes lots of "snot noses" on the wall. Aura is the complete opposite, thick and covers so well, always true to color even in different cans of paint... it's the best.

I haven't tried Natura but I'll bet it's similar.

[Delicateflower]

Yikes, $60 a gallon! Olympic is only $20.

[vm9799]

for the first time today we used benjamin moore aura paint and i gotta tell you, we aren't super impressed. we've used low voc valspar paint from lowes for everything and figured we'd 'upgrade' to the BM. totally not worth the price. didn't cover any better and cost twice as much......as in $112 for 2 gallons over the normal $48 we would have spent on valspar. oh well, live and learn.

i would suggest the low or no voc option from valspar or olympic. we used the low voc valspar paint in our dining room and it was totally odorless. i loved it! we will continue to use that in the future.

[Jen78fl]

Thanks everyone!

VM, is the valspar low voc paint odorless even with the tint added?? That is the main thing Im wondering about with no voc paints, if it will have a strong odor from VOCs once the tint is added..

[vm9799]

Originally Posted by Jen78fl

Thanks everyone!

VM, is the valspar low voc paint odorless even with the tint added?? That is the main thing Im wondering about with no voc paints, if it will have a strong odor from VOCs once the tint is added..

you know, i have no idea. in our personal experiences we've had no (or very very low) odor from both valspar AND olympic low voc paints......all tinted.

my husband corrected what i said earlier and said we've used the valspar and olympic pretty equally around our house. both have been great and very affordable! we have nasty environmental allergies and we have kids and pets, so we always opt for the low voc.

[Jen78fl]

Thanks VM. At least those brands are affordable.. I wonder how they compare to sherwin williams harmony as far as low odor.. My husband would probably prefer to use harmony because our house was originally painted with sherwin williams paint and he wants to be able to match the color exactly... Can anyone give comparisons on harmony versus other paints?

[mom0810]

As I said above, Harmony does not even come close to Aura from Benjamin Moore.

[Jen78fl]

Originally Posted by mom0810

As I said above, Harmony does not even come close to Aura from Benjamin Moore.

Thanks for the info... But what about when you compare the odors from both, does one seem to have less odor than the other?

[mom0810]

YES! Harmony stinks. I don't know why, but it does. Aura has NO smell. None. I painted my son's bedroom with it and he slept there that night with no issues at all. (We have allergies and asthma here).

Harmony takes at least 2 days for the smell to go away. It's bad. Which is funny, because it's no VOC and Aura is low VOC. But Aura does not smell at all and Harmony does. A lot. And that was with every color I tried. I did white-ish (alabaster ) and red and green. All very stinky. With Aura I have done red, light green, French Vanilla... all with no smell at all. You can go right up to the wet wall and sniff. Nothing. That's why it's worth the extra money to me. Nothing else I have tried is like that.

[vm9799]

Originally Posted by mom0810

YES! Harmony stinks. I don't know why, but it does. Aura has NO smell. None. I painted my son's bedroom with it and he slept there that night with no issues at all. (We have allergies and asthma here).

Harmony takes at least 2 days for the smell to go away. It's bad. Which is funny, because it's no VOC and Aura is low VOC. But Aura does not smell at all and Harmony does. A lot. And that was with every color I tried. I did white-ish (alabaster ) and red and green. All very stinky. With Aura I have done red, light green, French Vanilla... all with no smell at all. You can go right up to the wet wall and sniff. Nothing. That's why it's worth the extra money to me. Nothing else I have tried is like that.

and yet we've not had this experience with aura at all. don't get me wrong, it's not overwhelming or anything, but there is definitely an odor to it. we painted on wed. night and yesterday and i just walked in the door from grocery shopping and can still smell it. again, it's not awful stinky, but it's not odorless either. NOT worth the extra money here. we had way less (or no) odor with both valspar and olympic and it was significantly less expensive. just my personal experience though.

[Ola_]

Originally Posted by mom0810

With Aura I have done red, light green, French Vanilla... all with no smell at all. You can go right up to the wet wall and sniff. Nothing. That's why it's worth the extra money to me. Nothing else I have tried is like that.

I did not find that there was an odour with Aura either. We did a deep burgundy and a pale green colour, though I'm not sure that makes a difference (the dark red certainly had a lot of pigment in it). I have not used Harmony so can't compare though, sorry.

I wonder if the local store that mixes it could cause the difference? It shouldn't though, unless they are doing something wrong...

[YummyYarnAddict]

If you're not committed to a particular color or colors, I'd see if your hardware or paint store has a selection of Oops paints. They're paints that have been returned because the person changed her mind because the color wasn't what they wanted or accidentally bought satin enamel when they meant to buy eggshell. They're usually $1-5/gallon. I've gotten several gallons of no and low VOC paints in lots of different colors (neutrals for me and bright colors for the kids, so we have everything from alabaster to orange to lemon grass to hot pink) in that section and haven't paid full price for a gallon yet (I'm painting all the rooms in the house).

[Jen78fl]

Thanks everyone! It seems like some people are more sensitive to smell than others..I know I definitely am VERY sensitive to smells. I dont even like my husband to use cleaning supplies. I have replaced most of them with the non toxic kinds, like method (still smells), seventh generation, etc, but he likes to hide his clorox and sometimes uses that.. Drives me nuts!

Anyway, Aura sounds great but I dont think my husband will buy it bc of the cost. I am glad that valspar and olympic low VOC paint seem to have low odor.. I cant figure out why some low VOC paints still have an odor and others don't. Harmony is even more expensive than some paints you buy from Lowe's, Home Depot, etc, so Im not sure why it seems to smell more!

Thanks again everyone. I dont know what I would do without this forum to find out about these types of things!

[mystiquesmom]

My hairdresser mentioned how she painted her place in Milk Paint. It doesn't seem terribly expensive. I can't comment on the colour as I haven't seen her place yet, but more info can be found at http://www.milkpaint.com . If anyone can give any reviews, that would be great.

[miss_sonja]

I've used Aura in two rooms in my house and it's well worth the cost. Great coverage, great colours and it smells nice, not all painty.

The paint store lady said Aura is a better, longer-lasting paint than Natura and since it dries so fast you get truly little exposure to the VOCs.

[VBMama]

We used the Home Depot brand of low (no? can't remember) VOC paint called FreshAire and were happy with it. VERY sensitive to odors here and I was thrilled with that aspect of it. I'm not a paint snob, and haven't done a lot of painting so I can't offer a good comparison of the quality, but it was much, much cheaper than the Sherwin Williams.

[Jen78fl]

VBMama, I wanted to try that one but the problem with freshaire paint is that there isnt a wide selection of colors..

[Jen78fl]

Any other opinions? I appreciate all of your responses!