COVERAGE-can refer to two things…
1. How much wall gets covered (how many square feet a gallon will cover)On the label on the paint can there is a number of how many square feet the paint will cover it is just a ballpark. It may say that a gallon of paint will cover 350 square feet.Many things come into play –how many previous coats the walls have, type and quality of previous paint, heat in the room etc. And don’t forget some of the paint will be in your roller. This is a mistake people make when they buy a quart of paint. They measure up the area that needs to be painted and think a quart will be adequate. They pour the paint into the tray, get the roller nice and wet and then realize half the quart is in the roller and they must go out to buy another quart. In most cases two quarts of paint could cost as much as a gallon, but you only get half as much paint. My painting company almost never buys quarts of paint.
2. How well one colour covers another. Typically, the colour going on is more important than the colour being covered. Does that colour have tint that covers well like umber or does it have tint that doesn’t cover well like leafy green? High-film (fancy for thick!) products will do a better job of covering than standard paint. On average, whites and brightsdon’t cover well, earthy tones cover better. There are three main bases of paint
• White base –when you open the can the paint looks white (imagine that) and there is a little bit of room for a little bit of time. This means is that with white bases you are painting mostly with white paint without the help of much tint to cover the walls. Sometimes white paint doesn’t even cover white paint well.
• Medium base –this product looks more transparent like skim milk with more room for tint This means you are painting with some paint and some tint. This means you have enough paint to cover and enough tint to be helpful.
• Accent / deep base –this product looks clear with a lot of room for tint. This means you are painting with a lot of tint and not much paint. Think about when you have heard someone painting 11 coats of red paint on a wall.
IF you find yourself in a place where you think the existing color will be a problem you can always use a grey primer (more about this in the primer section). The best thing to do is, when you are at the paint store picking up your color chips to get started on the course pick up some that are close to the color of your existing walls and when you find a really close match take it to the paint store when you are going to buy your new Perfect Color and ask the people who are mixing your paint (but make sure you understand grey primers because not all paint store staff do). Typically, higher sheens don’t cover as well as lower sheens (more about this in the sheen section)
AND some paint stores carry “factory” bases. Which means when you open a can right from the shelf it may be red, yellow, pink or black. IF you can have your color (if you are picking red, yellow, pink or black) “tweaked” to fit into one of these cans (they can add tint to alter the base color) then DO IT!!!! These bases cover way better than if you were to make it in “typical” paint. For example, if you had candy apple red you wanted to paint on your front door and bought it in an accent base it would need many coats to cover but if you used it in a red base it would cover amazingly!!!! Not all paint stores offer these bases.