We’re painting a new addition up the street on Glenwood.  The homeowner has taken several measures in the project to obtain LEED credits and it seemed like a good time to try the new Sherwin Williams “Emerald.”

Emerald is a true zero VOC paint.  VOCs are the nasty things emitted into the air as paint dries and low VOC paint is what people are generally using indoors.  But “zero” VOC is only available from a few paint companies, and even then, only in the base.  Emerald is the only paint with zero VOC toner as well.  That’s a platinum LEED credit.

A few other things make paint more friendly.  A paint that’s lifetime guaranteed so that you never have to do it again.  A paint that can be scrubbed, abused, and never burnish so that it doesn’t need retouch.  A paint that can cover in one coat, or two coats for new construction.  A paint that self primes.  All because less paint is a better paint.

You would expect a few other things from a paint like this, and also with the pricetag like this.  I read one painter on a forum who said, “An $80 paint oughta jump out of the bucket and onto the walls.”  Agreed.  And nothing I’ve said so far this morning is review- It’s all salesperson talking points.

So what did this paint do?

All environmental goodiness aside, strictly from an application perspective, here’s what it did:  First of all it self primes. We’re painting new exterior wood, then new trim, new windows, new ceilings, and new interior walls.  Priming all of this would take considerable time.  Even to spray, it would have been a lot of prep, and due to scheduling the flooring guys were still inside.  The exterior trim and siding were all we could do at once.  No priming necessary.

So did it jump out of the buckets?  When I opened the can I did expect butterflies to escape, plus a sandwich under the lid.  But the thing that made me happiest was how much paint remained in the bucket.  This stuff covers.  And it stretches.  It covers like olive oil in a skillet.  Paint was gliding out of the brush onto the coarse Poplar siding like I was painting a cereal box.  It never sags, drips, or runs and in twenty minutes you wouldn’t know it was newly painted.

Consider this newly constructed surface has only been covered once, and will only need it once more.  Ever.  Housepainting is expensive work, and a paint that does it once, and does it with less paint, is not good for us at only $86/ gallon.  I’d say it’s probably worth $300 easy.  Of course no one would pay that.

With Emerald, if you want to go green, go green.  And even if you wanna be cheap, go Emerald.  I’ll have to tell this slumlord I know with his 37 college kennels.  He’s always giving people brushes. He’s made more painters than Bob Ross.  Moving on.

We’ll start the interior in a day or two so I’ll give an update.  It’d better smell like a Yankee Candle in there.