Paint Color Interview Seattle Kiro Radio John Shearer

Good morning this Pete.I’m Rob.And this is Home Matters.97 3 Rock [??] weekends.

Hey back at it there Roberto.

Yep how you doing Pete?

Ah, Doing Good. I, ya know actually I’m doing very good. I got good energy today and I didn’t even have a Redbull.

It was a rhetorical question, I really don’t care Pete.

[laughs] Well you know, I do feel good regardless…SS….

I love you.

I love you too. I love you too, we’ll give you a big hug after the show. [laughs] Today we are here we’re gonna talk all about painting. Um, all the top tips for painting we’re gonna get into everything from choosing colors to um, uh prepping to the type of tools you should be picking and then a the type of paint out there, really kind of demystifying all of this and our chief dymystifier today, we have John Shearer

Is…

…from Shearer Painting.

Is that the technical title. …SS…

Yeah he’s the chief dymystifier in his company, aren’t you John?

…Say it three times…

[laugh] I’ll try, I’ll try to be. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Yeah it’s good to have you. So we want to talk today uh, about painting, John you’ve, you’ve had a painting company for what twenty…

Twenty two years.

Oh wow, he’s been around the sales marketer for a long long time.

You don’t stay in business that long–

Yeah very well established, this guy’s a good guy. You know his company does very good work um, all around the Seattle area. We wanted to even get into some things about some of the historic homes you’ve done–…SS…

…Definitely, I want to hear about that yeah.

Yeah. So let’s get started John, ya know as far as the, the painting goes let’s, let’s…you know I look at it kind of like a process and,and maybe you do too, but before we get into actually jumping on maybe…we’ll, we’ll talk about exterior painting first, I think probably the first thing is really looking at color choices and all about color. So maybe you can start us off with that, talk a little bit about ya know what is color all about and how should people think about colors.

Uh I’ll give you a few quick tips that I think have helped some of my previous uh, clients. I would say about twenty to thirty percent of people that have their house repainted, just choose the same colors.

Really?

Yeah, yep they do.

Would that be like green and white or something? [laugh]

That makes it…it’s usually, it, it’s usually some combination of uh…green and blue are the two most common colors in nature, so that’s what’s on houses and white, as a [??] color.

Well I got two outta three.[laugh]

[??] I’m gonna make the neighbors mad you know, that’s the one their,their used to living with right? So…

Your house is yel, your house is yellow though isn’t it?

Yep. Red–

…So you’re, you’re, you’re not the norm. Anyway so keep, so keep going.

So the other seventy percent of people that um,are repainting their house, are changing the colors because it’s a new house to them or they’ve had the same color for a very, very, very long time. So, I, I would tell them to take the process very very seriously. It’s much easier to change a sweater or break up with a girlfriend than it is to divorce a paint color.

[laughs] Yeah I guess you gotta [??] every single day when you come home from work.

Oh yeah a paint job, it could be five thousand it could be fifty five thousand dollars depending upon the house, so it’s, it’s something you should take seriously, uh I’m gonna give you three quick tips, about, paint colors. First I think you should learn a little bit about the science and language of color. Uh, I have a color blog, wonderful colors dot org. And I have a quick article about the science of color because uh, uh color is only a perception. It’s actually light reflecting off objects coming back at us and we perceive that as, as a color.

Oh yeah, yeah.

And it’s a physical part of nature. So we have labels like blue red and green. Um, those are our way of describing it. Color should al-…so first of all you should learn a little bit about the science of color. You should learn some of the ter, terminology, um, hue, value, tint, shade.

So, so slow down a little bit.

[laugh]

Our, that our listening audience really is, is…we want to know about these things so, maybe take…just give us a little bit. What is hue? What is tint? What is shade? What,what are those things–

Maybe you can touch on those things a little bit.

Sure. Those are the four basic ones, so in order to get the perfect paint color, um you’ll probably wanna talk about it to someone at the [??] if you want to adjust it. So hue refers to the color itself. So green, blue the actual color.

OK

Value refers to the darkness of the color. So if you have a color swatch and it has a bunch of greens, they’re all the same hue but of a different value.

Yeah.

When you want to adjust a color, if it’s a shade, you add black to it and it makes it darker, but it’s the same color. If you add…I, I…if you add white to it, it becomes a tint.

OK.

Black is a shade.

So. Let me ask you…cause I’ve always wondered about this. Black and white are not colors right? Or are they colors?

They actually not…uh…that’s a great question. [laugh]

Yeah, because I’ve always wondered…for shades right? But people have told me that black’s not a color.

Black is an absence of color. If there’s no…like I said previously if you have…in order to see, in order to see color you have to have light reflecting off an object coming back into your eyes. No light it’s all black. All the colors–

…So that [??] inside your head, it’s all black. [laugh]

[??]

White is a combination of all the colors, and the first person to really…well the most famous person to prove that scientifically is Sir Isaac Newton, with his prism. He divide, he divided a light beam in a room, upside down all the colors, combine it, it’s all white. That’s why white goes with everything, because it’s a combination of all the colors.

So if you just joined us this is Pete at Home Matters of 97 Kiro FM. We’re talking here with John Shearer here of Shearer painting, all about a…right now we’re talking about colors, we’re gonna get into everything else too. So let’s, let’s get, let’s get practical now so let’s say you know, Robert and I talked–

…You know I kinda like that though you know…it’s kinda of bouncing around in my head, I guess ’cause there’s nothing else in there.

Yeah because it’s all black.

White goes with everything. Now we know why. Scientifically proven by Sir Isaac Newton, how ’bout that? [laughs]

And you know speaking of that, you mentioned um…ya know Robert and I are believers in ya know, you go to a paint store, we like Dalys, we like  Sherwin Williams Paints things like that. These guys really know there stuff. And I know you like Dalys quite a bit, ya know, going there. So,so let’s, let’s say OK, now we understand the four aspects of color, now, now our listeners are going to go actually to the paint store. So, can you talk us through maybe a simple process or some tips they could use to actually select the color and the accent colors for their home.

Yeah I’d be happy to.

So, when you go to a paint store, there’s always a color display area. One thing you should know is, is the lights are all natural light. The bulbs are natural light.

Aaah.

Oh, so, so they, they put it in lights to make sure that you don’t have to take ‘em outside like you used to.

You don’t have to take ‘em outside. And…

Do they have rain inside those stores too?

[laughs] They don’t.

[??] I’d really be dancing around. [??]…SS…

Change the shade ’cause that’s not gonna look like tomorrow.

OK, I’m sorry keep going.

It’s it’s always better to take an individual chip versus a, a swa,uh a swatch that has multiple colors. I always recommend for uh, the homeowners that I’m working with that uh they go to stores and take individual color chips and the reason why is if you have…on a typical color fan that has, let’s say a bun, a bunch of blues five of them together.

Right.

The darkest blue is going to look much darker,

Mm-hm

because it’s adjacent to lighter blues.

Right.

And the lightest blue is going to look much lighter than it actually is, so it’s better to look at one color chip by itself.

Mm-hm.

And then if you get serious about that,color it’s a, part. It’s a candidate for your wall inside or this side…outside of your house, you wanna match it into paint, because
those color swatches are ink. Unless you’re using C2 paint, which is available at Dalys or using , Benjamin Moore Color Stories which is available at Mallory Paint. Find a Benjamin Moore Paint Dealer
Th, Those paint chips are painted, are, are actually paint instead of ink.

What, what is C2 paint?

C2 is a name brand of paint.

Oh, alright.

And it’s available at Dalys paint www.dalyspaint.com , but, but those two color systems, their color fans are painted with…or are printed with, with the actual paint inside of the ink.

Oh wow!

Their very expensive. So,if you like a color you should get it into a quart, and then you should test it on a larger scale, uh on your house.

I was gonna ask you about that ’cause ya know, you see a lot of this…especially at the big bucks store they got these little cans of paint and they say take ‘em home try ‘em out. Are you a big believer in that or should they have more paint and try it on a larger surface area? ‘Cause that doesn’t seem like it’s gonna cover very much.

The advantage to the small cans, is, is it’s a very economical way to test out a color, um, …

OK.

Six dollars, I think for uh, a little jar of color. The draw back to that is that that paint doesn’t represent the type of paint you’re gonna use on your house. So, one, one quality that affects the way a color looks is the, the sheen. So, I’m gonna use a particular product. I’m a big fan of emulsified codings, Benjamin Moore Moreguard. It has some sheen to it.

Mm-hm.

If you do it in a small test jar, it’s much flatter, it’s a lower qual, it’s a lower quality paint …SS…. I always recommend, that you mix it in a gallon.

Mm-hm.

And paint it on a large surface, because you never know how it’s gonna look and you, you have to put it on different sides of the house and–

Right.

You, you know and the, the light affects the way a color will appear. Uh, Robin Daly says you should look at a color with your morning coffee and you should look at a color with your evening Staglee Cabernet, ’cause, because the morning light, is, is ye–

I like that.

[laughs] Come on, you, you know it’s me [??] …SS.. You’re the Cabernet guy, you know it’s gonna be–

Overcast, li, overcast lighting makes, puts, puts a bluish cast. Um,And when it’s, when it’s really sunny, it’s a yellowish cast. It really, really affects the color.

So, you know chief dymystifier we gotta ask you another question here…

Yeah. Yeah I’m ready.

So John, I…One of the things too is about the…you mentioned sheen and I kinda brought it up in my…’cause you know we got the different…we got the Sat, the flats, the sats, the glosses. For exterior painting versus interior painting wha…can you kinda help us understand when you would choose a different sheen.

Well for durability, the highest sheen possible is always better.

…SS…The highest one you could live with right?

Well, under a microscope, flat paint, um looks like the surface of a moon, it has craters.

Right.

That’s why when you have a flat wall inside your house…like this flat wall right here, you can’t scrub that off because, it’s, it’s a poor substrate.

You could only get the surface, where the tops and the peaks are gettin’ cleaned off and all that stuff down in the pores that dirt’s stayin’ in there right?

You’re right.

All that grease.

And, and a gloss paint–

Hey, hey I know grease–

I know you know grease! [laughs]

So gloss–

And, and a gloss paint uh has…it’s a tight surface.

Mm-hm.

Is that, is that true for exterior painting as well? Or is that only for interior?

Um, whether you should use a…well it, it’s true for both.

[??] Gloss outside too as well as inside?

Well, well most people don’t choose to use gloss on everything because of aesthetics, so usually there, there’s a–

Oh right. When you get too glossy, it, it just doesn’t look right.

Absolute, you, you need it on horizontal surfaces like win, window sills, facial boards that are more, more exposed.

Mm-hm.

But on siting, I, I never recommend a flat finish, I recommend at least a satin. It’s much more durable, the cost of the paint, is, is insignificant compared to the cost of labor installation.

Oh great. When we come back we are going to be taking again with John, we got a bunch of other stuff to cov, cover as far as prep, choosing your paint tools, uh the different kinds of paint, ya know, whether it’s latex, oil based all these kinds of things. John’s our expert here, chief dymystifier, John gonna hav, John’s gonna have a
tip sheet too. He’s gonna have a top ten tips on some of the things you can do for paint, you’ll find that on my northwest dot com slash home matters. So stay tuned we’ll be back, I’m Pete.

And I’m Rob.

And this is Home Matters.

97 3 Kiro FM Weekends.