The Best Paint Brands for Your Trim and Baseboards
Does your home’s interior feel drab and dull?
Take a look at your trim and baseboards. If they appear less than inspiring, perhaps it’s time to give them a facelift.
Painting your home’s trim is a simple yet effective way to liven a space. Painting offers an endless number of paint colors for you to choose from. Whatever your style, there’s a paint for you.
The trick is finding the right colors, finish, and best paint brand for trim and baseboards. All three of these will affect the look and feel of your room. The right paint brand won’t only look good, it will last for years.
Are you ready to transform your home? Here’s how you can find the right paint and paint brands for your trim and baseboards!
Best Paint Options for Your Painting Project
When painting any part of your home, you need to make a plan as to what you want your room to look like. Choosing a paint palette is one of the most important choices you’ll need to make before painting.
In addition to color, you need to decide on which type of paint you want to use.
Paints come in a variety of styles such as oil, water, and latex based options. Each of these types of paints offers a set of advantages and disadvantages that vary on your preferences and painting needs.
The two main types of paint are oil based and water based. Water and oil use different binding agents to adhere to surfaces. You’ll need to weigh the pros and cons of each to decide which option is best for your painting needs.
Oil Based Paint
Oil based paint is a solvent-based paint that offers greater durability and a budget-friendly price tag. Oil paints make a great option for painting baseboards and trim with their rich vibrant color and resilience.
Baseboards and interior trim will experience more daily abuse than your walls or ceiling. Oil based paints will resist scratches, scuffs, and fading better than most water based paints.
You can choose between synthetic alkyd oil paints and organic linseed oil paints. Synthetic oil based paint is more durable than organic but offers a few drawbacks.
The downside to oil based paints is they’re harder to clean and more hazardous to your health. Fresh oil based paints produce a strong odor and volatile organic compounds. You’ll need to wear a respirator and open windows for airflow when painting with this type of paint.
Cleaning materials are also more challenging. You’ll need paint thinning solvent and proper safety gear to clean materials such as your brushes. Proper disposal of used solvent and old oil paint is necessary to prevent contamination or harm to the environment.
If taking additional precautions to enjoy richer durable paint doesn’t bother you, interior oil based paint may be the right option for you.
Water Based Paint
Water based paint, also known as latex paint, is a safer interior paint option. The three major benefits of water based paints are:
- Faster drying
- Safer to use and have a less noxious odor
- Easier to clean
You can paint faster with water based paint as they take less time to dry. This allows you to cover more area and paint multiple layers within a single day. Oil based paints can take 15 to 24 hours to dry.
The downside to latex paint is it’s more expensive than its oil counterparts and isn’t as durable. Despite this, water based paints are safer and faster benefits make them the more common choice for interior painting projects.
Paint Finishes
How do you want the surface finish of the paint to interact with the light?
Paints come in several finishes ranging from a sleek high-gloss shine to a velvety flat finish. The right finish will depend on your paint and style needs. As you consider finishes, you should note high-gloss finishes will cost more than matte and satin finishes.
High Gloss Finish
High gloss paint has the most reflective and shiny surface. Glossy finishes tend to be more decorative and are best saved for accents, such as your trim and baseboards. An advantage to high gloss and glossy finishes is they’re easy to clean and maintain.
Semi Gloss and Eggshell Finishes
Semi gloss and eggshell finishes balance the shiny appearance of gloss and the soft feel of matte finishes. Semi-gloss errs closer to the glossy side while eggshell tends to lean towards the satin side. These finishes will vary from brand to brand.
Both options are great for high traffic areas like kitchens and bathrooms that need a durable paint that’s easy to clean. Some semi-gloss and eggshell finished paints use a special formula to make them more durable in moisture-rich areas.
This style of finish is a great option for trim and baseboards in your kitchen, bathroom, and any place that regularly sees a lot of traffic or moisture.
Satin Finish
Paints with a satin finish tend to appear mostly matte with a subtle trace of shine. Satin finishes are fairly easy to clean and are a very popular choice for walls, trim, and baseboards.
Flat Matte Finish
Flat finishes don’t have any reflective or shiny properties giving them a warm velvety appearance. If you don’t like the bright shine of glossy paint finishes, a matte finish may be a perfect choice.
Flat finishes are best for low traffic areas making them ideal for trim and baseboards found in your living room, dining room, and bedrooms. This style of paint isn’t as easy to clean and may scratch or scuff easily.
Finding the Best Paint Brand for Trim and Baseboards
Paint stores offer a wide selection of interior paint brands and colors. Now that you have your color palette, paint finish, and paint type in mind, you’ll need to pick a reputable brand.
There are two aspects of brands you need to consider. First, paint price is an indicator of quality. Cheaper paints will offer poorer results and a shorter lifespan.
The second concerns the consistency of the paint. Thicker paints offer a better look that’s consistent and even. They’ll also save you money since most only require a single layer to adequately cover trim and baseboards.
Investing in the best paint brand for trim and baseboards will give you a higher quality paint designed to last for years. Here are a few of the best paint brands.
Sherwin-Williams
The best paint brand for trim and baseboards is Sherwin-Williams. They offer high-quality paints with high pigmentation for richer long-lasting colors. Sherwin-Williams is the brand most professional painters and contractors trust for their projects.
Sherwin-Williams has several lines of interior and exterior paint available including alkyd, latex, epoxy, and water-based paints. Each type of paint comes at a variety of price points.
They offer over 1,500 different colors along with color collections that allow you to mix and match colors to find the right palette for your home. The paint is thick and rich with pigment but offers great flow for easier painting and minimal brush strokes.
These benefits come at a hefty price tag. You can expect to pay over $50 per gallon of interior paint. Its highest quality paint lines cost around $70 or more per gallon.
Behr
Behr is another quality paint offering great long-lasting results and durability. Most of Behr’s interior paints cost between $30 and $45 per gallon. It’s an affordable option that doesn’t sacrifice quality.
Behr paints are thick and offer great coverage and rich pigmentation. Behr also offers many types of water based and oil based paints as well as a range of finishes.
The main disadvantage of some of Behr’s paints is they aren’t ideal for brushwork. The paint will hold the brush strokes and won’t dry flat. This might make it painting trim and baseboards tricky as you’ll need to use a foam brush or a small roller.
Benjamin Moore
Another noteworthy paint brand offering high-quality paints is Benjamin Moore. Benjamin Moore’s Regal Select paints are durable, easy to clean and come in a variety of colors.
These paints average around $50 per gallon making them comparable in price to Sherwin-Williams. The paint is thick and can adequately cover a surface in as little as one to two coats. It’s a great option for painting trim and baseboards as it doesn’t leave behind brush strokes when it dries.
The durability and ease-of-application make Regal Select a great option for painting your trim and baseboards.
Brighten Your Home By Painting Your Home’s Trim and Baseboards
Transform and enliven your home by adding a fresh coat of paint to your trim and baseboards. You can make your home feel brighter, larger, and more welcoming.
The key to a quality paint job is finding the best paint brand for trim and baseboards. Investing in a quality brand will give you a rich color guaranteed to last for years.
Have questions or want more interior design tips to improve your home? Drop me a line. I’m happy to help you with any of your interior design needs!