9 best paints for your home

Clark Howard Staff | May 24th, 2018

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Painting is one of the easiest DIY projects that can improve the look of your home when you’re on a budget.

The key is buying a quality paint and getting it at the right price!

Best paints for inside and outside your home: Benjamin Moore, BEHR, Valspar, Dutch Boy and more

J.D. Power is out with the results of its 2018 Paint Satisfaction Study.

After looking at 23 leading brand name paints, here are the results:

Interior paints

Benjamin Moore, BEHR, Valspar and Dutch Boy were all singled out for above average performance in the interior paint segment.

Exterior paints

Sherwin-Williams leads in the exterior paint category. That brand is followed by Benjamin Moore, Pittsburgh, BEHR, Clark + Kensington and Dutch Boy.

Paint stores

When it comes to the question of where to buy your paint, J.D. Power ranked retailers on several metrics: The assortment of merchandise available; the price; the sales and promotions; the staff and service; and finally, store facility.

The clear winners here was Benjamin Moore paint stores. In the second tier of sellers, we have Sherwin-Williams, Menards and Ace Hardware.

Meanwhile, big-box store and home improvements stores like Lowe’s, Home Depot and Walmart all scored below average.

These paint colors can increase the value of your home

Now that you know which brands of paint are the best and where it’s best to buy them, we can move on to the question of color.

Obviously, this is a highly subjective! What one homeowners loves on their walls, another person will loathe.

But there is a body of research out there that can help guide color choices if your motivation is to have more of that other color — green — in your pocket when you resell your home.

“Homes with yellow kitchens, often in hues of creamy or wheat yellow, yielded the highest sale premium ($1,360 above expected values),” according to Zillow findings.

Meanwhile, research shows that colors in the kitchen to avoid when looking to maximize home resale value include darker grays and browns.

Learn about how color choices in other rooms can help or hurt your home’s value.

This post was last modified on January 6, 2020 2:32 pm