I have to agree that 200 has some legs, I just don't like how it looks. :D

The universe has quite a sense of humor. I bought a new house about 18 months ago and the entire interior is Promar 200. It's not bad. Seen (and felt) worse. Getting one room at a time repainted; just did my home office in Farrow & Ball's Blue Ground (love it).

The kicker is there are four large, gorgeous columns in the formal front rooms. I love columns, they're my favorite architectural feature. So, the chucklehead builder decides to have them faux finished in a "marble" pattern. This is where the universe doled out a double dose of humor -- the new house I ended up buying has perfectly gorgeous columns completely effed-up with a bad marble faux finish using ProMar 200 "Eg-Shel" ta boot. Maybe it's that Law of Attraction thing - whatever you resist and give energy to, you attract into your reality whether you want it or not.

Pic is kind of dark, but here are my columns which someday will be sanded baby-butt smooth and painted a satin-y white. The sea of beige on the walls is ProMar 200 too. The niche is Ben Moore's Aura in the color Wenge.

Sherwin Williams website also has a good document to look at about its Promar 200 XP. This is billed as a paint that can go on bare drywall in ONE COAT. Of course, its more expensive, etc, but they point out how much you'll save in paint and labor. Don't think there's any way I could make it look right with one coat.

I think I'm convinced to go with the 200. I'm sure I'll be happy with it, since the 400 in the garage looks fine to me.
Neither my wife or I am too hard to please in this area.

200 is the only real option for your walls. 400 is, at best, an option for ceilings that just need a fresh coat before selling. 200 is a basic grade paint that fits most common uses - it covers in two coats (within reasonable color conversion parameters) and for most it is an acceptable look and feel. If you are looking for a high end finish the Promar line is not for you. Resiliance or Duration are high end options. In the Midwest Benjamin Moore is the most prevalent competitor. BM Super Spec is on par with 200, whikle BM Aura is the super premium paint.

Here is a link that might be useful: Your Painters - Naperville - Chicago - The World

My contractor mentioned to me yesterday that I could get my martha stewart paint colors matched at Sherwin williams with the primer already mixed in. Is this a good idea. I will be painting exterior and interior. I want the best. Or very close.

Been using BM paint for years ...Just had a painting contractor talk me into his buying the paint ,,after telling him what I wanted ..and showing him what has worked for us ...and been happy with . WELL..big mistake ...he painted our house with Promar 200 . Horrible ! Have to repaint ! Back to Benjamin Moore ...Never anything else again..SOOO much nicer than the Sherwin Williams .

quote"with the primer already mixed in". LOL

i'm sure the problem was the painter not the paint

No it's the paint...can't wash ...comes off on your cloth ..if it gets very wet it peals right off...I had to wait for it to dry then sand the edges .All has to be repainted with washable paint . They even painted my front door with "water resistant' paint ...same basic line. Everybody"s house gets dirty . front doors also have to be washed from time to time . This paint is cheap ..and yes it was the painters fault ...as I offered to buy the paint and he insisted on supplying it. If you read Sherwin Williams web site it has boxes to check for washability ...if you check light wash ..much less heavy or scrub, this doesn't come up ..It's recommended for multi units and garages ect...NOT residential or normal living areas. .I guess this painter just repaints every 3 or 4 months ..or lives with dirty walls .

And it's ugly ..looks like chalk on the walls..and doesn't cover ..What could be wrong with this ????

This message is for johnsdoghouse. I had my house painted few months ago and had the exact same experience. I paid almost $8000 for a portion of my house to get painted and it looks horrible. I had already picked out Benjamin Moore paint and the painter convinced me that sw promar 200 flat paint would be great and live up to my expectations - washable. Paint is cracked all over and water marks everywhere and does look like chalk on the walls. I also see every swatch mark on the walls. Complete disaster. I am going to have to sue the painter because he is telling me I have buyers remorse!!! Who the heck can live with paint you cannot wipe.

Labor should be about the same, if not exactly the same whether you have them brush/roll cheap paint or stupid expensive paint. Painters who try to finagle an extra buck or two from the paint purchase are a nuisance to the whole process of painting your house. No painter should ever argue with a top tier selection. I don't mind accommodating a painter if he/she has an adamant brand preference (in the spirit of being nice) but I'll pitch a fit over the grade.

I had a contractor recently use the 400 on my kitchen walls. He swore by it so I said OK- not having researched paint. I hate it. The color is fine but it literally flakes off the wall at the lightest touch. No way will I be able to put a damp cloth on it for any reason. It's only been 3 weeks and I've already had to touch up several places. I don't know anything about the 200 so I can't compare. I would have gladly paid more for a better quality paint.

First off...Promar 400 is only good for ceilings in a flip home as mentioned before. Secondly...Super Paint should be the minimum choice from SW. If you are planning for any good finish you should avoid all contractor grade paints. They are cheap and you end up with cheap results. I use top of the line SW paints all the time and I still will always stick with Super Paint. As far as the comment about the material price should be the same as labor....Lady you are crazy! Materials should be 1/3rd. Why do you think I work for myself? Its not to make $10 an hour...

"As far as the comment about the material price should be the same as labor."

That's not what I said.

Labor should be about the same whether applying cheaper or more expensive grades of paint. Further emphasizing the fact that priced per square, a more expensive grade of paint really isn't that much more expensive.

Actually, labor turns out to be more using cheap paint because you spend more time trying to make it look good(usually to no avail) As far as I am concerned ,I NEVER use contractor grade paint on any job I do, unless it is a cheap rental flip. I also do not use SW paint, but that is a different story.

My best advice to homeowners seeking painting bids, is to demand to know exactly what brand and line of paint the contractor intends to use. Then call up the paint store and ask where on that manufacturer's scale, that paint lies. Any painter not using top quality paint is looking to his bottom line rather than your best interests. I've never understtod the logic of using anything but the best on my personal residence? "Penny wise and pound foolish", as the saying goes.

Further, don't ever pay a contractor in full until you are completely pleased. Don't front the contractor money for paint and supplies. If he is living that close to the edge, then he has no credit at the paint store, you don't want him!

@Christopher Nelson, true. Point taken.

Absolutely true Nelson.

During my contracting days, I was a user of Ben Moore paints, mainly because customers wanted to see a name brand. Ben Moore, even though on the expensive side, at least rates very well with most of its paints, unlike Sherwin Williams, which takes the cake for overpriced paints with lousy ratings by the independents rating companies.

In full disclosure, I have been selling Behr paints for the last 11 years and have been using them in and on my house. I find them to be at least the equal of any of the competitor products i have used. I have seen a marked improvement in is 100% acrylic resinswater based paints over the last couple decades, especially in the WM enamels. HOWEVER, ALL THE MAJOR PAINT GUYS MAKE VERY GOOD STUFF, down to really bad stuff. Even Behr makes the Pro 100 line to compete with that SW 400 and 200 line,

In my opinion, you can buy really excellent paint in the $30 to$45 price range, more and you are simply paying for the name. The important things in paint which are the biggest factors in paint costs are 100% acrylic resins and pure titanium as the pigment, rather than clay and chalk, which are found in that "contractor's paint".

quote "unlike Sherwin Williams, which takes the cake for overpriced paints", boy, you got that right, as well as this " the biggest factors in paint costs are 100% acrylic resins and pure titanium as the pigment, rather than clay and chalk, which are found in that "contractor's paint".

I use BM and SW and even some Behr and I can say that they all pretty much take the same amount of time to apply, but I did try Behr Marquee last year and that stuff is so hard to spread, that I'm sure it added application time. I used to think that all paints were the same until I tried Marquee and that is their highest priced paint.

I can only say I used the Behr Marquee to paint my bedroom and found it to roll nicely, but then, I was painting over a well sealed, lightly textured wall. Having a large bedroom with 12 foot vaulted ceilings, I really didn't want to go around twice! Coverage was fine in one coat, going from a medium green to a light beige with no problem.

David Jensen but are you getting paid for production?

Obviously not Christopher, as it was my own house, but i can't say that I found the Marquee slow to work with. I was using the flat over an existing quality competitor's flat which I had put on several years . At 73 years of age, production is not the greatest of my concerns!

I can appreciate that some paints can be really draggy. Pratt and Lambert used to make a really good latex eggshell that laid out beautifully and looked just like an oil paint, unfortunately, it was just as draggy as an oil paint.

Well, I am 10 years behind you and I will say that production is not my main concern either, but I try to make up for it with quality and get paid well at the same time.

Fortunately, during my contracting days, my family's company was known for not being the cheapest, but for being one of the best. We depended on repeat business and referrals. When you are aiming at high end residential, cutting corners of materials is extremely foolish. People were also willing to pay for good work.

During the slow part of the year from the Holidays through early spring, we would send out 3000 direct mailings to our old customers right after New Years. This would generate enough business until things just naturally picked-up in Spring. The old customers did enjoy a price break for booking during this time.

Seems like people just want to chill out for awhile after the Holidays and just watch football. The return of good, sunny weather does get them into thinking about freshening the house up too.

Guess what some people have to understand and maybe your contractor or painter should have explained Pro Mar paints are only for interior also if you want washability with any paint go satin doesn't have a real sheen but washes up so much better

jasiu-w,

I have no problem with a token deposit as earnest money, but frankly, when doing quality residential work, 20% is a high material cost, and I never used anything but top of the line Ben Moore paints. Neither did I pass along any mark up on the materials cost. My bids were all inclusive as to paint and labor. Obviously, wallpaper costs can vary wildly. There the customer was responsible for the cost, but allowed to use my company discount at the paint/wallcovering store.

I have never hidden the fact that I sell Behr paint at Home Depot. Every painter has their favorite paint with which they are comfortable. I can only tell you that I have never been disappointed with any Behr product I have tried, and I have used most of them either on my house, or when I personally try them out on projects in the store. But then, what do I know, my family has only been in the painting business continuously since 1907, and before that in Denmark. :)

An interesting thread here, but gosh.... original post was 8 YEARS ago!

10+ years ago, we had the Behr independent-store line, Expressions. Same stuff that was in HD. We just called Behr-Process for a HD color-formula. At some point, HD bought the "Behr" rights to be their exclusive. Back then, Glycol-based colorants were still in use. Since 2013 however....most companies have had to switch to Acrylic-based colorants, because of the Low-VOC regulations.

When my employers moved into a MUCH bigger location in Fall 2006, we dropped Behr, & took on C2. Required a $17,000 Corob D600 pump-driven tinter that would hold C2's SIXTEEN Colorants tho'....uffda!

Faron

Thanks Faron, I didn't realize this was one of these dinosaurs that refuse to die! :)

8 years is an eternity in paint technology. when I started at HD 13 years ago ( I am 75 now), Behr only had one line, Premium Plus, which is still a good basic paint, but the Ultra and Marquee lines have greatly surpassed it.

I need someone to explain to me if the picture below is primed or paint.

Background full house restoration from flooding. I asked contractor to use Benjamin Moore White Dove. He talked me into Sherwin Williams and said the could color match to White Dove.

Went to check on things and I found this can of paint no primer. So the are putting this on my new celling without primer.

Please...what are your thoughts. I am so irritated but my husband keeps telling me I am over reacting.

@Julie F. That is not primer. It is Pro Mar 400 with one shot of black added to cover better. It gives the ceiling a slight blue hue if you put white or cream next to it. He did not get them to color match the Pro mar 400 to White Dove (OC-17) from Benjie Moore. The issue is painters get a nice discount on paints at their preferred merchant. I would save about $8 per gallon using Pro Mar 400 over say Eminence. The Pro Mar line even has a ceiling paint that is superior to Pro Mar 400. Hope this helps. Good luck. Sounds like you have somebody trying to save a dollar at your expense. He might be using it as primer but it's not primer. Flat paint is not primer

So can you tell me what the end result might be they didn't put a primer under this mess and this is has been painted throughout my entire house on all my ceilings and trim.

Promar is the SW "contractor line", the stuff that new home owners gripe about when they buy a new home, because it doesn't wash well. Contractors who put it on your home are looking out for THEIR bottom line, not yours.

I always advise homeowners, when getting a bid from a painting contractor, to ask not only for the brand of paint, but for the specific label of that manufacturer's paint. Then call the local paint dealer and ask just exactly what it is in the spectrum of paint. Or, do a Goggle search. This info is not hidden. In general, if the paint resin is less than 100% acrylic, and the pigment not 100% titanium dioxide, you are getting less than premium paint.

All the major paint manufactuer's make some really good paint, and some outright crap. Promar is to the crap end of the scale.

If you refer to Consumer's Reports ratings of paints, even the top of the line Sherwin Williams products don't rate near the top - but at least it is expensive! :) Benjamin Moore paints are pricey too, but at least they rate well.

I have never understood why painters,who want to generate a repeat clientele, would not use the very best paint. In terms of the total bid price, paint cost is a small portion of the bid. It is the labor and knowledge that the good contractor is selling, not paint!

During my 4 decades of contracting, I featured the premium lines of Benjamin Moore paints. The price of the paint was included in the contract.

Promar 400 flat is about as basic as it gets. You say they put this on trim???

Its fine for ceilings. They hopefully put a primer on any new sheetrock. You will need to look carefully at different angles in different lights to ensure good smooth coverage.

Promar 400 flat on trim is very unfortunate.

I have no idea, it looks blue around edges of ceiling to me.

@Julie F. Primer is used because it adheres better than normal wall paint. Primers usually contain more solids as well which result in a smoother more consistent finish throughout once the top coat is applied. Primers because they adhere better, contain plenty of solids so it fills in scratches/hides the difference in texture between the joint compound and wall board. The end result could be a ceiling that looks odd from different angles in different light. More labor to make it look nice. The trim is what i'd be worried about. I'm just not sure how well the 400 will adhere to what was underneath. Was the trim new? Was it glossy? It matters. The easiest answer is I wouldn't use ProMar 400 for anything in my customers homes or my own. Only property management firms and new construction should be using the 400. I'd be watching this painter closely. I wouldn't let him put anything less that Super Paint (SW) or BEN (BM) on your walls as a finish coat and that's bare minimum. There is no reason a custom painter doing restoration work should be using lower quality paint. I stick to Emerald, Duration, or Super Paint from Sherwin Williams as finish wall paint with their ProClassic as trim. Aura, Regal Select, or BEN from Benjamin Moore as my finish paints with their Coronado Rust Scat as trim (weird name I know) I hope this helps

Cheap paint is fine for ceilings. It's actually preferable since the cheap ingredients in the cheap flat paint help to fluff up the paint film which means it will hide better and this is also the reason it touches up the best.

Any bare drywall or texture should first be sealed with a dedicated drywall primer. Primers are perhaps even more important than the finish coat. After all, you will never again have the opportunity to seal and bond to that drywall or texture.

I would agree with pointguy22, that ceilings aren't as critical as walls. Who now-a- days washes ceilings, at least, in general living areas? Many years ago when homes weren't well insulated and people were still burning coal for heat, wall and ceiling washing was a right of spring. One winter heating season and they wold be noticeably dirty. Modern insulation standards and gas and electric heat have largely done away with such cleaning necessity.

Thanks I spoke with the contractor and he insists that paint can be used as a primer on Fresh drywall. Unfortunately he it's cutting numerous corners at our expense. The attached are supposed to be new trim around our windows however he's taking it upon himself to reuse them...even though the scope of work called for new ones. I can't even imagine how this is going to look once he tries to fix them and paint them.

Where cheating on primer really shows up, is if someday you decided to hang wallpaper. The drying of the wallpaper paste will literally pull the paint off the drywall. I have run across this "self priming" paint when hanging wallpaper. I would put a pre-paper sealer on the walls first, and then hang the paper. All done quite "kosher" and according to accepted practices. A couple days later the customer would call and complain that the seams were lifting. Sure enough, the seams are coming up and the paint is stuck to the back of the wallpaper,. leaving bare drywall paper showing on the wall! Obviously, the paint was not bonded to the wall!

I know of no way to correct this problem, other to remove the wallpaper and advise the customer not to hang more wallpaper. So long as only paint is used, the bonding situation does not seem to be aggravated.

By the way, re-using those old window casings is penny wise and pound foolish! New casings are not very expensive and require far less work to get them to look good. But, what do I expect from a "painter" that uses SW Promar where the customer expects quality work.

Yes, paint can be used as a primer on new drywall, but it's not the best thing to use, plus your contract says primer so what a strange conversation to have.

A drywall prime will have a higher resin to pigment ratio than a general primer, such as Kilz2 or Zinssers 123. It is the resin that gives adhesion, not the pigment. Also, there is a difference in drywall primer quality. PVA ( PolyVinylAcetate) is a decent drywall primer, but in terms of adhesion and sealing ability, a pure acrylic drywall primer is superior. Of course, it does cost a couple dollars more than the PVA.

@ David Jensen...I just want to thank you for providing your knowledge on this subject!...I am in the process of having restoration work done to my house following water damage. I told the contractor I wanted a higher grade of paint than the flat cheep stuff the builders used as I have dogs and frequently need to wash my walls. Well they assured me that they were going to use top quality showed up with the SW PM-200. Luckily my dad was there to stop them and they only got two walls painted. Now after reading this thread I am confident I need to fire the contract mgr. Co. As it is evident they don't have my best intrest in mind ! THANK YOU again for sharing your knowledge! Appreciative in

....Appreciative in Oklahoma

Some painters just don't take the time to educate themselves or visit past paint jobs to see how they are holding up. Pro Mar 200 is better than Pro Mar 400 and Pro Mar 700, so in their mind it might be 'the good stuff'.

what is your go to paint line for selling a house. obviously you are painting to sell. a blank slate, so to speak.

Hello just curiousour.. what is the name of the Benjamin Moore paint you are talking abo?