LESLIE: Dante in Rhode Island is on the line with a question about how to paint bathroom. Tell us what you are working on.
DANTE: Well, I had my house painted a couple – two years ago. Then my wife decided she wanted to take the towel rack off the wall. I took it off the wall, I compounded it, I sanded it. And I had some paint: a brand-new can of the gray paint, pint.
TOM: Right.
DANTE: I opened it, I stirred it up, put it on the wall. It dried a different color.
TOM: Are you repainting a wall but you just happened to have an extra can of this stuff? Is that what you’re doing?
DANTE: The painter told me – he said, “Why don’t you just buy a can of this paint?”
TOM: Oh, OK. And now it’s not matching. Yeah, I understand. Problem is that with exposure to sunlight, the color changes, it fades.
How big is this room?
DANTE: It’s a bathroom; it’s not big.
TOM: Alright. So it’s a small room. Alright. Listen, I think the easiest thing for you to do to paint bathroom, at this point, is to repaint the whole room. Because with all the aggravation you’re going through to try to match this old paint, by the time you just mask everything off – put one coat of primer on first. That is really important. Do not skip the primer step. You will be very sad.
Prime the walls first because this will seal in whatever’s there. And then just put one coat of paint on top, over that, and you’ll be good to go. I think, at this point, you made every effort that you should reasonably make to find the color that matches the old paint. That was – you were unsuccessful. So let’s go and start from scratch to paint bathroom, especially since it’s only a bathroom and a fairly small room and easy to paint. OK?
DANTE: Not like this – that it’s old. The can was brand new.
TOM: I hear you but it’s not working. So, there’s a point where you kind of throw in the towel and that’s what I would do. I would – if that was me, I wouldn’t mess with it any further. I would just throw in the towel, put a coat of primer on everything, repaint the walls and call it a day.
Good luck with that project.
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