One of the most common painting questions homeowners ask is how often to paint house interior. There are many factors at play and there is simply no one-size-fits-all answer. It’s important to understand each of these factors, especially how paint quality impacts the longevity of your finish. In this blog post, we’ll dive into these factors and what makes a high quality paint so you can decide how often you should paint your house interior.
How Often To Paint House Interior
Lifestyle Factors
One of the main factors that impacts the longevity of your paint and how often you should paint your house interior is your lifestyle and how hard you are on the inside of your space. Whether you are single, an adult couple, a family with children, or a home with pets, each of these are very different situations with different activity levels that impact the wear and tear of your painted surfaces.
Homes with children and/or pets may experience more scuffs, scrapes, spills, and wear and tear that requires more frequent repainting compared to a single adult or adult couple who is not as hard on their painted walls.
For example, we’ve been in homes that have only been lived in for 6 months, but already need repainted. On the other hand, there’s homes that haven’t been painted in 10-15 years, and they are still in pristine condition.
Type of Paint Used
The type of paint used on your surfaces is one of the leading factors that contributes to the longevity of your interior paint job. Although many new construction homes use Sherwin-Williams paint products (a trusted company), they opt for the more cost-effective options, which are made with lower-quality materials. Unfortunately, these cheap paints are not durable and require more frequent repainting.
High quality paints are by far the best option. Even though they may be more expensive initially, they are formulated with better ingredients, such as premium pigments, binders, liquids, and additives. This leads to greater durability, more even coverage, better color retention, easier application, and more longevity. In the end, you’ll likely save money by investing in high quality paints from the start and not having to repaint sooner rather than later.
4 Elements of High Quality Paint
Pigment
There is a lot of misinformation out there about what makes a high quality paint product. While you’ll often read about high quality paints having more pigment and percent volume of solids, this is only half the story. You can load a lot of volume solids into a paint product, but if the solids are low-cost extender pigments, it will not make the paint more durable. It will just make a lower quality paint even thicker (and harder to apply!).
For example, drywall mud or joint compound has a ton of volume solids, but it’s not something you’d just paint with and leave up on your wall.
To better understand this, it’s first important to know that there are two types of pigment in a can of paint: prime pigments and extender pigments.
Prime pigments provide color and hide while low-cost extender pigments add bulk to the paint product, but not much color value. Think of these pigments as “fillers.”
More expensive, higher-quality paints have a much higher count of the important prime pigments. These are expensive to mine, sort, and grind into pure and consistent granules. Solid and consistent granules of titanium dioxide (Ti02) provide a more solid surface, which allows you to get better coverage, more washability, and an easier, smoother application. All of this leads to greater longevity of your paint job.
Other elements of a high quality paint product are the binders, liquids, and additives used.
Binders
Look for binders that have greater adhesion and are more resistant to cracks, peeling, and stains. Latex is a great binder for interior paint products.
Liquid
The liquid in paint is simply there to help get the paint from the can to the surface. High quality paints have more pigments and binders than liquids.
Additives
Additives in paints are ingredients that give it a specific benefit, such as providing better hide, mildew resistance, even pigment distribution, and spoilage prevention. Rheology, mildewcides, dispersing agents, and preservatives are common additives found in high quality paints.
Color Trends
Color trends are also another big factor that plays into how often you should paint your house interior. Some homeowners wish to stay up with trendy colors, color schemes, and interior decorating cycles, so painting is a more frequent occurrence for them. If you’re looking for help choosing the best color for your home, check out this blog post.
All in all, how often you paint your house interior depends on both lifestyle and color preferences, but is heavily influenced by the paint quality you have. Just keep in mind, cheaper paints may save you initially, but over time, you’ll spend more and have more time invested in repainting. Investing in higher quality paints with more prime pigments up front can make your interior paint job last longer and hold up better to wear and tear. You can learn more about the estimated cost of interior painting in this blog post.
If you’re reading this blog post and realizing it’s time to repaint your home’s interior, we’d love to help you bring your vision to life and ensure a long-lasting finish. Visit our contact page to learn more about our professional painting services and book your free estimate today!
