So, how’s that VOC-free paint?

CIL Naturaliving paint review. Quiz me. The mystery is solved: eggshell paint, figured out. We’ve now used every variety of the CIL Naturaliving line – not just eggshell, but ceiling paint, semi-gloss and plenty of primer.

We bought CIL Naturaliving for 4 reasons:

1. It’s a NO-VOC paint readily available in Canada (tricky!), sold at Home Depot (so no extra trips to specialty paint stores).
2. The prices were listed online, which made budgeting easier from the outset.
3. As totally beginner paint-colour-choosers, fewer choices seemed easier. Naturaliving has 250 or so.
4. Price! Ranging between $25-$31 a can, we couldn’t do better.

An arranged marriage – practicality, not love – but one I’d make the best of. We soon got to know each other and, to my delight, I barely noticed he was there.

VOC-free success

Any smells? Hardly. Through the winter, we’ve been priming and painting cupboards indoors, with the windows shut. Wall of paint fumes? Not so. I can only detect a faint paint smell when opening the primer. Working from home as a freelance writer, I couldn’t bear to spend the day around paint fumes. In an apartment, I’d never use anything else.

Paint fumes and smells

For a good measure of scientific control – I’m precious with smells-not-from-nature. Perfume hanging in the elevator…Febreeze in the supermarket aisle, that crap makes my eyes water and throat burn. If the paint fumes were a problem, Paolo would have been the first to hear about it.

Paolo! I didn’t whinge at all, did I?

…Ok, he’s not actually here – but it seriously doesn’t smell. I know people tend to use VOC-free paints in nurseries, but it’s just as important in small apartments with few windows or means to ventilate.

Room-by-room paint review

1. Bedroom (only 1 window): Painting the bedroom was an onslaught; about a million coats of primer, ceiling paint & wall paint going on as quickly as humanly possible. Yes, you could kind of smell that paint had recently been in the area. For half a day. We slept in the room the same night.
2. Hallway (no ventilation): When painting the hallway – an enclosed space with no through-draft – again, you could kind of smell paint. In a cute way.

“OMG I am so cute I’m painting and I’m wearing jeans overalls and my hair is in pig-tails and I’m slightly disheveled but still adorable because I’m painting”.

3. Living room (sliding doors): I painted the living room over the course of a day with the patio doors wide open – any fumes fled. No paint smell whatsoever – and believe me, I breathe quite regularly.
4. Kitchen: Eggshell paint on the walls around the oven and sink and no backsplash. Months later it wipes clean every time. Semi-gloss paint on the kitchen cupboards is liquid heaven.

Coverage

With walls that used to look like this, it took 1 coat of primer and 2 coats of eggshell wall paint to finish them. That’s standard, right? I can’t confirm or dispute CIL’s coverage promise – we’ve wasted a lot of paint by leaving a half-full paint tray, covering it in cling film, intending to return the next day. Inevitably we skirt that sucker for weeks – losing cups of paint in the process.

(Do they make paint trays with sealable tupperware lids? We’ll take 10. If not – that’s totally my invention, don’t steal it)

My only notion of how-far-a-can-lasts is our magic pot of semi-gloss. It’s tackled two coats times 3x interior doors, 4x closet doors, all the kitchen cupboards and doors, with 20% of the can left remaining. Does it replenish itself at night?

CIL paint durability

CIL eggshell paint, meet pomegranate juice. As much as I love fuchsia and turquoise, my unintended dose of pink across the kitchen wall came right off with just a damp sponge. As do coffee, grease, and anything else we routinely douse it with.

Naturaliving paint types

• Primer: We’ve so far used it on drywall, joint compound, wood, metal and plywood. It sticks.
• Eggshell: Really like this paint. It looks great and, even though I bragged our walls were level 5, they’re surely not. But this paint looks good.
• Ceiling paint: An ongoing operation, via major avoidance and DIY A.D.D. Our ceilings are still battle-scarred in places, and came quite badly stained. We picked light colours (lightest shade on the swatch, cut by half) and it’s looking like the bedroom will need a fourth coat. You probably wouldn’t notice the stains until we pointed them out, but it’s not what I want to contemplate when I wake up. Perhaps we should have used two coats of primer – we didn’t know.
• Ceiling paint as wall paint: We also used the ceiling paint inside our closets – when I ran out of yellow eggshell and chose not to care. Where hangers and belt buckles have scraped the wall, they’ve come clean with a damp sponge (is this super OCD?).
• Semi-gloss: I’ve been sporting a white arm-band for a week. Not militant Korean protestor but clumsy with wet paint – this stuff sticks. I love this paint though. That it managed to turn the world’s most disgusting cupboards into such beauties is something very magical indeed. We’re realizing now that our Ikea Ingo table and chairs, previously painted in flat paint are going to need some attention. Given the time and space I’d definitely adopt all of Craigslist and paint it various shades of Naturaliving semi-gloss. TIP: Let it dry for ages (a week!) if it’s going in a high-traffic area.

Cautionary tales: Mistake #1

The sole reviewer of Naturaliving primer on Home Depot’s site found the primer didn’t stick to plaster crown moulding. With that, I’d agree. In our haste to finish the bedroom I did something stupid, knowing at the time it would backfire.

CIL Naturaliving does not stick to joint compound that you haven’t allowed to dry thoroughly. Neither the primer, nor the impatient two coats of paint applied on top will stick to the ceiling or the wall. The products especially will not stick when you mask the section with painters’ tape, smash it down with some force, and leave it there for days. Neither you, nor the paint, should be surprised with the crude butchery that follows. Let this be my severed head on a pole outside the city gates – be ye warned.

Mistake #2

Ah. Yes. Well. Enter us in Darwin’s Paint Failures 2011. Who knew that paint could turn into rancid rotten milk? Likely every other home-owning couple but us. We opened a can of paint after Christmas to find it had, uh, died.

It smelled as bad as it looks. Really, really not nice. A lightning round of Google explained the sour paint was either Home Depot’s fault (compromised with dirty hands or tools when mixed), or our fault (we introduced bacteria at some point or left the lid ajar).

An honest mistake – we didn’t know any better. Other cans had curdled too. L-7 weeeeenieees. What I know now is that normal, toxic paint has chemicals to keep bacteria at bay. VOC-free paint is much more likely to go off. Maybe Farrow & Ball’s million-dollar-mark includes this sort of customer education? Anyway, Home Depot happily exchanged it for us – free of charge.

You’ll avoid the curdle potential if:

1. you start a project and finish it in normal order or;
2. bother to seal the cans properly.

We like to do half a wall and then walk away, hoping it completes itself.

Wish-lists and whinging

1. It’s stupid that you can return empty paint cans to Home Depots in Quebec and Ontario, but nowhere else in Canada. Think BC is an eco-haven? It’s a lie!
2. Naturaliving only comes in gallons. Not exactly apartment-sized, nor ideal for minor touch-ups. CIL – help a pikey out!
3. I should have taken advice to buy a pourable paint lid ages ago.

Want further proof? Check out our current stash of apartment renovation before/after pictures – with top-to-bottom CIL Naturaliving paint in turquoise, yellow, and white.

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Sandlot photo found here

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