Lowe's paint is good, the Valspar. I used it and Sherwin Williams in my old house and was very pleased with it. I thought it was as good as the SW. In my kitchen reno, I'm using BM for the first time.

This can be kind of a "Hornet's nest" question, but...the short version is:

* As long as you're in each mfr's upper paint levels, you're "good-to-go".
* Make sure it's 100% Acrylic Latex.
* Perhaps more important though, is the prep/wall-washing/cleaning/priming beforehand!!!!
* A poorly prepped surface (or NO prep!) can sink even the best of paints...
* I'm partial to C2 (an upper-end paint), but we have it in our store!

Faron

I will not allow any Lowe's paint near my brushes LOL!

I would personally choose Sherwin Williams interior Duration, but ICI Dulux or Ben Moore Aura are also good paints. Those paints are the most frequently used among pros, but there are others. Use Floetrol or XIM Xtender to condition the paint with. I just finished an exterior job in 99% humidity in the Florida summer, and the Duration performed beautifully with the addition of the conditioner. In 30 days the Duration will be rock hard and will stand up to much abuse, you won't get that from Valspar. But this is just my opinion. Use the best you can afford.

As Faron pointed out, the preparation before painting is the MOST important step to a professional result, so take your time and put your energy into that first. To me, I would not waste my money on box store paint if I'm going to all that meticulous prep work. That's just me.

Good luck with your project!

Careful Prep + Good Paint + Good Tools + Good Technique = SUCCESSFUL JOB!

Careful Prep + Good Paint + Good Tools + Good Technique = SUCCESSFUL JOB!

Also AVOIDING ANY paint from the big box stores

I have always used Ben Moore, but recently helped my son-in-law paint the inside of his new home. He had bought Behr at Home Depot. I was VERY impressed with the paint. It went on easy, dried nicely and showed no streaking and ... it was half the price of the premier brand paints.

Well, I don't know how valid the 'only use 100 percent acrylic paint' rule is anymore. I recently had the opportunity to paint a ginormous 2 story foyer/family room with Behr Premium Flat or whatever it is called. It is 100 percent acrylic paint. The paint appeared to cover in one coat when it was wet (taupe color over builders white) which was impressive. But, as the paint dried, it was obvious that the coverage was just average. Other than that, it spread like crap and when I was done, the walls were a flashy mess (roller marks showed, lap lines showed, stop marks showed, etc). Keeping a wet edge with this paint doesn't really do anything for you...it's going to look pretty bad in any room with any degree of critical lighting no matter how 'well' you apply it. This means that any room with windows casting light down a wall, that wall is not going to look good. Maybe next time I should try boxing it 1 to 1 with Floetrol?

The bonus for me as a painter is that not many homeowners notice that their walls look crappy unless you point directly at the crappy looking wall and say, 'See that there?'. Now, I didn't stick around to test the washability of this paint after full cure, but again, most homeowners want washability and then they never wash their walls, so who cares about that anyway? All this means that Behr can probably employ any type of marketing strategy that they want geared towards the homeowner and it will succeed and they will continue to sell paint like crazy because not very many homeowners visit their local paint related message board to find out from the real painters that these big box paints really suck. And even if they do learn that the paint is bad, they may just buy it anyway because it is just simply cheaper.

Now, don't get me wrong. If you have rooms with no windows and you don't care about washability, Behr is fine. It's a great paint for your linen closet.

Behr can sell it's paint for half the price of premium paint because it is about half the quality, pretty simple.

Shame on me?!!??

PG has a good point there...some 100% Acrylic-Latex are better than others!
I can directly state this however...
>>> We go thru LOTS of ACE-Royal ceiling paint...no complaints.
>>> In my own home this past March, painters that I knew do good work, used our C2 LOVO (Low-voc) Ceiling-Paint (L8150), and it looks perfect.
>>> They "really liked the way the C2-stuff covered" they said. They hadn't used this particular paint b4.
>>> Same comments about the C2 Lovo Matte on our tall foyer walls!

Faron

That's kinda funny, but I guess I'm used to differing opinions among painters. The one complaint I really have about C2 is that none of their paints really cover all that well in comparison to other high end brands. My C2 dealer just got Aura though, so I don't know how much more C2 I'll be buying. My second biggest complaint is that the Matte hatbands, is flashy and doesn't wash very well. I'm hesitant to recommend using it, but I can't really recommend a better option outside of Aura for a washable flat. Most manufacturers make a washable flat, but none are really washable. I guess you need the sheen if you want to keep it clean!

paintguy - are you saying the C2 matte hatbands and flashes, or the Aura matte?

Yes, C2.

There isn't a trace of "hat-banding" in our entry's C2 Matte.
(C2's Stellar...a medium-deep Blue)

99% of the time, it's caused by too heavy of a cut-in strip, and not feathering-off the roller-pressure over the cut-in band.

We had it primed with C2-One gray primer, and 2 coats of Stellar. Looks perfect...

Faron

We use SW. Have used BM, but my DH likes SW better. If I find a BM color, I just have SW match it.

I'll second the flashing assessment of C2. We had our whole apartment - walls and ceilings - painted with it. We hired professionals (the same guys that paint for Thomas Pheasant, if you know who that is), so I'm pretty confident that it was applied correctly. And yet, the flashing is extraordinary.

And not just the ceiling. The walls too. I have windows that are huge (14' wide, 7' tall, stretch across the entire width of the room) and the walls show as much flashing as the ceiling does. Coat after coat, couldn't get on top of it.

Finally called it a day (I was leaving for a couple months and will be mostly gone for the next year), and will try some other brand - ANY other brand - when I get back.

Kudos to the paints guys for trying everything in the book, and the paint store who also tried to help solve it, and NO THANKS to C2, who denied even the possibility of such a problem.

But no, I would never ever EVER recommend C2 to anyone. YMMV, but our windows proved its downfall.

Oh yeah, and C2 matte burnishes so easily: my husband brushed up against the wall and the seam of his cotton button-down made a burnished drag mark in the middle of the wall. His shirt seam (regular dress shirt, regular seams, nothing weird) kind of "polished" the paint right there, making a streak of "shiny" in a splotchy, flashing wall of "matte." (And the paint job was four months old when he did this, so yes, it had time to cure.) So, ya know, not so impressed with C2's durability either.

Maybe Aura isn't "all that," like the way people wax lyrical over C2, but my Aura kitchen is perfect, no burnishing problem, no flashing.

I have used Lowe's paint in two houses now and have really been pleased with it. It goes on great, doesn't do a lot of dripping, and washes up nicely.

It's not top of the line, but I can afford it and I get lots of compliments on the nice colors.

On my last house, I primarily used Lowes top line Valspar paint in eggshell finish. Mostly due to the fact that Lowes was closer than anyone else. I've never had a problem with coverage. It went on fine, of course I'd never used BM or another high end brand so I had no comparison. We (2 adults, 3 kids) lived in that house for 1 year and rented it out for one year. The tenant was a very meticulous, high maintenance woman. After she moved, we decided to sell so I washed the walls down. The scuff marks would not come out, so I decided to touch up, afterall most of the paint was less than 2 years old. After the touch ups dried, I could totally see the newly painted areas. In several rooms, I ended up repainting. She was very easy on the house overall. The biggest problem was that she would use candles and oil scent burners. The smoke and soot from these would not wash off.

In my current home, I used the same Valspar to paint my entry hall. It's been almost 18 months and the finish hasn't held up. Thankfully, it's the only place I used it. Again, everyday scuffs won't wash out. It's on my list of rooms to re-paint.

I definitely won't be using Valspar again, at least not in any high traffic areas of my home.

I recommend Benjamin Moore over Valspar or Behr. I've only used the Regal line and Natura line so I can't vouch for the Aura, but I've had great results. Last week I just painted my laundry room with BM regal eggshell. I scored a can of oops paint for $5, I just couldn't pass it up. It's definitely a thicker consistency.

Good luck!
Kathe