Hello,
I am looking at different paints and came across Grand distinction from Menards. I like their color selection. I was wondering if anyone used this paint and what are your thoughts? I am looking to paint my kitchen.
Thanks
Warren
Welcome to the forums Warren!
I've never seen a Menard's store but assume they are more or less the same as Lowes or HD. That said, a big box typically stocks coatings based on price rather than quality. IMO you'd be better off getting your paint from a local paint store [not a paint dept] They should be able to match any paint or color sample you bring in.
Whatever paint you decide on, it should be an enamel [most likely latex].
I agree with Mark - I only buy paint and supplies or seek advice from those working in paint stores, never paint deparments in bigger stores
Thanks for the input. I will keep looking for a paint that suits my need for my kitchen.
Warren83:
I have a different opinion than my colleagues, Mitch17 and Marksr. When a chain of hardware stores like Lowes, Home Depot, Home Hardware or Menards decides to introduce it's own brand of house paints, they'll normally approach all of the different paint manufacturers like Pittsburg Paints, Sherwin Williams, ICI Ltd., etc. and ask for a quote to supply a line of paints at what the hardware store considers a reasonable price for quality paint. (That part is important; the hardware store chain dictates what the price range of the paint will be.)
The only variable is that each hardware store has a different number in mind when it comes to deciding how much is a reasonable price to pay for quality paint.
But, since the price range of the paint has already been set, and since each supplier is going to be basing their quote on supplying the chain of hardware stores with thousands of gallons of paint monthly, the volume discount the store would normally get actually ends up going to the customer in the form of better binders or a better additives package in each can.
This is why paints like Behr Paint from Home Depot (which doesn't get much respect otherwise) typically rates very highly in publications like Consumer Reports. Consumer reports will never say that Behr makes excellent paints... they don't. But, for the price you pay for the paint, it's better value for the money than you'd normally expect. If I had only $18 to buy a gallon of paint, I'd probably buy Behr. I'd object to buying and using $18 paint, but the best lousy paint out there is probably Behr.
Ditto for American Tradition paint marketed by Lowes. I've never used the stuff, but all the comments I've read on that paint were excellent. For years, Sears Beauty Tone interior paints and their Weather Beater exterior paints were consistantly rated very high in Consumer Reports magazine, but I've never used that brand either.
I certainly agree that people that own paint stores generally know more about paint than people that work in paint departments. But I disagree that the quality of paint you'd buy at a hardware store would be expected to be any lower than that purchased from a paint store. If anything, in my view, it makes sense that it would be the other way around. That's because the chain of hardware stores (like Menards) would tell the paint manufacturers what they want the paint to cost. So, since the selling price is fixed, the volume discount the store would get ends up going to the customer in the form of better quality paint at that price. And, a chain of hardware stores would command a larger volume discount than a single paint store, which tend to be privately owned businesses.
I'd try Googling Grand Distinction and see if you can find some comments on this paint from people who have used it. If nothing else, I can tell you that everything I've heard about American Tradition paint from Lowes has been very positive. And, I use Pratt Lambert Accolade Satin in the F4790 tint base on all of the walls in my apartment block, and I think it's a great paint and I'm sure you'd like it as well. But, it costs about $50 $Cdn per gallon.
Nestor:
Thank you very much for your insight. It makes perfect sense.
I did a Google search and I read some very positive opinions in regards to this paint. I am pretty sure I am making a trip to Menards .
Warren:
I've got an idea:
Since I KNOW that PL Accolade Satin is an excellent paint, why not buy:
a QUART of Accolade Satin in the F4790 tint base in the colour you want,
a QUART of Behr Satin ENAMEL in the colour you want, and
a QUART of Menards satin Grand Distinction paint in the colour you want, and compare them to see how the Grand Distinction stacks up.
Look for better hide and much less paint spatter in a quality paint. Also, once the paints are completely dry (after 2 or 3 days), scrub each one with a Magic Eraser the same number of times and see if any of them lose their gloss as a result. You can always paint over the Behr paint with a better paint.
See, I'm thinking that you may think the Grand Distinction paint is the best paint made, until you try a truly good paint like one of Pratt Lambert's top-of-the-line Accolade paints.
While that's a great plan for testing the various brands, it won't necessarily be cheap. I suspect the price for 3 quarts would be close to the price of 2 gallons
Paint is typical of most products in that you get what you pay for
I wouldn't use paint that cost $18/gallon, it's harder to apply and may need more coats than paint costing $30-40/gallon
Is that a savings?
Keep in mind every manufacturer has multiple lines of paint - I use Benjamin Moore paint but would not touch their bottom of the line stuff. The big box stores will typically not carry top brands or at least not their top line of paint.
Along with the advice offered above, you need to look at the paints themselves. We manufacture our own products and consistently have people coming in to purchase our middle grade paints because they out perform the top end paints at the box stores. We also carry a national line of paints and I have had to return product because their top end did not perform nearly as well as our middle of the road products. Further, look (if you can) at what is in the products. You will find various fillers, such as crystalline silica, in the paints offered by bigger companies because it is a cheap filler that adds volume but detracts from performance. My middle of the road paint retails for $30 a gallon. I would put that up against Regal from BM and Accolade from PL, both of which retail for $40-$50 a gallon in my area. I would put my contractor grade product (retails for about $23) up against any middle of the raid paint.
Bclacquer:
You said:
You will find various fillers, such as crystalline silica, in the paints offered by bigger companies because it is a cheap filler that adds volume but detracts from performance.
Every latex paint will contain some extender pigments. The purpose of extender pigments is not just as fillers.
1. Extender pigments lower the gloss of the paint. Were it not for what you call fillers, all paints would dry to a high gloss film.
2. Extender pigments improve the hiding ability of the paint.
3. Extender pigments help give the paint viscosity so that it doesn't run on vertical surfaces as it's drying.
4. When a latex paint forms a film, there is considerable tension in that film as it's forming. Adding extender pigments reduces that tension so that the paint sticks well to the substrate, but doesn't pull excessively hard on the substrate. This is exactly why it's recommended to paint over chaulked surfaces with oil based paints (which don't develope any tension in them during their film formation process).
So, extender pigments are NOT simply fillers like you put into drywall to reduce the amount of gypsum needed. They can also be an important component of the paint to give it certain characteristics.
Take a look at this web page:
Pigment basics. - Free Online Library
You will note that the silica extender pigments and ceramic microspheres are the hardest extender pigments in use. Those extender pigments will only be used in coatings that are hard and strong enough to support them well, and in doing so, provide good abrasion resistance. Both ceramic microspheres and crystalline or fumed silica are the most expensive extender pigments, and are anything but an indication of poor quality.
Some paints will use clays, such as kaolin clay, as a filler material, but no one uses a relatively expensive material like pulverized silica sand as a filler. Silica sand is relatively expensive to begin with, and the process of pulverizing it into a fine powder is also expensive in that it is hard on the machinery that does that work. The silica dust gets into the bearings of the machinery and causes greater maintenance costs. Consequently, anyone selling crystalline silica will include all of his overhead costs to make the stuff, including maintaining the machinery. So, no one would use crystalline silica simply as a filler when you can buy clay, chaulk or talcum powder for a fraction of the cost.
Marksr:
You said:
While that's a great plan for testing the various brands, it won't necessarily be cheap. I suspect the price for 3 quarts would be close to the price of 2 gallons.
I expect the original poster would realize that three quarts of paint is going to cost more than a single gallon. The idea here isn't to save him money, but to compare his Menard's paint to both high and low quality paints to see for himself how it stacks up. Not only will he learn what to look for in a quality paint, he'll also get his original question answered: Is it any good?
Hello,
Well, I went out and bought the Grand Distinction. I bought Pacific Pine color for the walls and an off white for the ceiling. I have to say I am impressed with the quality. The paint went on very well after I got rid of my Wagner paint stick and went to use the good old fashioned paint roller.
I will wait until tomorrow and see if I have to give the ceiling another coat but so far it looks good. I probably should of waited until the sun was out because I had a little trouble finding were I left off.
I would recommend Grand Distintion
Warren83
Warren:
With a name like Pacific Pine, your paint is undoubtedly a Hunter Green colour. The green pigment used in most paint company's colourants is called Thalo Green which is short for Phthalocyanine Green. This is a very common green pigment because it's inexpensive and has good color fastness (it doesn't fade from sunlight quickly), but it doesn't really hide very well.
What you want to look for tomorrow morning is a picture framing effect around each wall. That is, around the perimeter of the room you'll have two coats of paint:
1. where you used a brush to cut in where the wall meets the ceiling, and
another 1. where you filled in the wall with a roller (prolly).
Where those two coats of paint overlap, there will be two coats of paint but only one coat in the middle area of the wall that was only done with a roller (prolly).
If you see any of that picture framing effect (which is characterized by a greater density of colour around the perimeter of the wall), it means you're not getting complete hide in one coat.
This isn't an indication of low quality in a green or blue paint because (so far as I know) every paint company uses Thalo Green and Thalo Blue as their green and blue colourants, respectively, so you wouldn't have gotten any better or worse results had you used any other paint of the same colour. You would have only gotten better hide had you chosen a flatter gloss in anyone's Pacific Pine coloured paint.
Let us know what it's like after it's dried for 24 hours.
Nestor:
I should probably not make too wide of cut in to minimize the picture frame effect.
Thanks for the heads up
Warren
Warren:
No, the solution to low hide is not in using a thinner brush for doing the cutting in. The solution is in applying more coats until you can't see any difference in colour density between 2 coats and 3 or 3 coats and 4. I tell people to apply an extra coat of paint around light switches and look for increased colour density around the light switch. You need more paint around a light switch because that area is always being cleaned to remove dirt from people using their tennis swing to turn the lights on and off.
You see, latex paint is really just a slurry of particles suspended in a liquid. The particles consist of:
1. clear, transluscent or white extender pigments
2. coloured primary pigments, and most importantly
3. hard, colourless clear or transluscent blobs of plastic called binder resins.
The liquid consists of a low volatility water soluble solvent (called a coalescing solvent, or a coalescing agent) dissolved in water. In latex paints, all of the liquids evaporate from the paint as the paint dries, leaving only the solids behind. Thus, the properties of the dry paint film are determined entirely by the solids in the can, not the liquids. (PS: the coalescing solvent used in many, if not most, latex paints is a product called Texanol from Eastman Chemical. So, if you want to give your house that freshly painted smell whenever you want, just buy some Texanol and spray it around like an air freshener.)
http://www.eastman.com/pages/product...torType=market
But, what's important to understand here is that once the paint film is dry, some of the film's properties come from the extender pigments (like abrasion resistance, the gloss level and some of the hide), some come from the coloured (or primary) pigments (which is the paint colour, most of the hide and it's colourfastness) and some come from the binder resins (like whether the paint has good acid, alkali and UV resistance, how well it sticks, how hard a film it forms, how resistant to water and high humidity it is).
In a white or off-white paint, the hide will come primarily from the white pigment Titanium dioxide in the paint. Unfortunately, you can't add white titanium dioxide to a Hunter Green paint without changing the paint's colour. So, Hunter Green colour paints are made by taking a tint base that would otherwise dry clear or transluscent, and adding lots and lots and lots of Thalo Green colourant to it. So, in that colour of paint, you have to rely on the Thalo Green pigment and the extender pigments for hide. In a high gloss Hunter Green paint, there's very little extender pigment, and the Thalo Green simply doesn't have great hide. In that case you have to apply more coats of paint.
You could have also applied a green tinted high hiding primer for your first coat. The white titanium dioxide and lots of large extender pigments in the primer would have done wonders to hide the colour of the substrate, and then all you would have had to do was hide that lighter green paint with darker Pacific Pine green paint.
Cut in with a sash brush, fill in with a roller, allow 24 hours to dry, look for a picture framing effect, and get back to us. You should also be aware that most people use a sash brush wrong for cutting in. The correct way to use a sash brush is shown below:
Nestor:
Thanks for all the info..very informative. It looks like I should make my cut in as narrow as possible to make the picture frame effect less.
Thanks for the pic on cut in. I usually use one of those pads with wheels but the usually makes for a very wide cut in edge.
Warren
Cutting in 1 wall [or section] at a time will help to reduce the 'picture frame' effect. Ideally the rolling is done while the brush work is still wet......... but the better the coverage, the less it will be an issue.
Hello
I just painted 2 walls in my kitchen using Grand distinction and the color is Pacific Green in satin. I cannot believe the coverage and how nice this paint went on. I could get away with one coat easy but I am way too fussy since the only thing I would like to give a second coat is where I cut in. I will send a pic of my first coat soon. I would highly recommend this paint
Warren
Let the paint dry for 24 to 48 hours. Wet paint will always hide considerably better than dry paint. (Post again if you want to know why.)
So, you really won't be able to evaluate whether you've gotten complete hide in one coat until the paint finishes forming a film.
You can tell when film formation is complete by the newly painted smell in the room. Once you smell the coalescing solvents, then you know that they have evaporated from the paint film, and that's the final step in latex paint film formation. It'll only be then that you can really tell if there's any picture framing effect, and therefore if you've gotten complete hide in one coat or not.
If your paint colour is a dark or Hunter Green, then I'd be suprised if you could get complete hide with one coat no matter whose name is on the can. However, if it's a pale green (with a lot of white in it), then it would be more plausible in my books.
Just don't assume that if the wet paint hides the underlying colour completely then the dry paint film will as well. That'd be a mistake.
Got it...thanks
I am planning on a second coat anyways..
Warren
It has been 17 hours and I am debating a second coat. The first coat still looks great..The only thing I notice is that is a couple small areas I must have cut in at the ceiling and spread the paint too thin.
Warren
I'd suggest just touching up those areas and see how it dries. The darker the color and the higher the sheen - the harder it is to touch up paint.... but you won't know until you try
I wouldn't even look at it until you smell the coalescing solvent.
Job done
Gave it a second coat and I would highly recommend the paint I used.
Thanks for all the painting pointers
Warren
P.S Trying to decide what to paint next...
Tags: grand, distinction, paint, menards, quality paint, extender pigments, Hunter Green, paint film, Thalo Green, this paint, chain hardware, chain hardware stores, coats paint, complete hide
