OP, I agree with above poster and suggest Matte. BM has a gorgeous matte in its Aura line I use. It is a great paint and well worth the $$.

With a better paint you need fewer coats/use less of it, so the $$ ends up being comparable.

Unless your sheetrock is absolutely PERFECT in every room (and it isn't if your house is not brand new) then satin/eggshell is not a good choice. You will see every imperfection.

I just painted two very large rooms with intricate wainscoting. One coat on it all the first day, second trim coat next day. It took me an afternoon both days.

I've used Farrow & Ball in a number of my rooms. Some of the colors are very interesting as the lighting in the room changes and I've not seen that replicated in other paints, but not a look that is needed in all rooms. Other colors look very, rich and velvety. They do have paint pots that are poor examples of the actual paint color. Cleaning walls has stood up to 409 I all but one of our rooms.

One of the suggestions by interior designers often is use the best paint you can afford. (My husband pointed that quote out to me.)

On the flat vs. eggshell issue... a great option is Sherwin Williams Duration matte. It goes with just a tad more sheen than flat, but washes like eggshell and is super durable. I've gotten Benjamin Moore colors matched to it and they turned out great.

Anonymous wrote:Farrow & Ball is supposed to be great. The ladies on the Washington Post home chat rave about it. It's really expensive -- runs about $100/gallon. I have to tell you, though, that I was comparing BM and F&B colors. The F&B color just popped against my fabric and I couldn't find anything comparable in BM. I'm still debating whether to actually buy it, though. It's a lot of money for paint on top of the cost of labor...

We have farrow & ball in various rooms. BM aura and fb are birds of a feather...each one paints of differently than regualr bm. Both don't hold up well to scrubbing. Fb rubbed off the wall where pillows brushed against it. Each requires test pots on walls of the version you are using. And bm doesn't make pints of the expensive stuff!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The nicer/fancier your house, the higher the contractor will estimate the job.

Is this really true? I do think that the estimates are strangely higher in certain neighborhoods.

Not sure, we've never had a whole house painted before now (I'm the 3000+ SF house owner about to have a full home paint), though I would have thought this to be the case, too. I will say though, the 2 estimates I just got were actually nearly identical. They were within $500 of each other. From 2 totally different companies. And each of the guys spent a solid hour or more walking the house, checking out all the areas, taking notes, measurements, etc., then writing up the proposals. I was pretty surprised at how close they were, but I interpreted that as meaning both companies used a fairly precise methodology to come up w/ our quotes (both right around $15K for the interior (all walls, ceilings, molding, lots of trim, etc.), plus $6K for all the exterior window trim, doorways, and a large back porch), and presumably then, the prices would have applied irrespective of our location. Unless there is a fancy pants surcharge that is just slapped on top....

Anonymous wrote:The nicer/fancier your house, the higher the contractor will estimate the job.

Is this really true? I do think that the estimates are strangely higher in certain neighborhoods.

The nicer/fancier your house, the higher the contractor will estimate the job.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eggshell. We redid our basement and I forgot to mention that's what I wanted to our contractor. He painted it in flat and after a month there were scuffs on the wall. I can magic eraser and spray clean EVERYTHING off of the eggshell walls upstairs, but we're going to have to repaint the stupid basement now.

And I agree with pps who say to do it yourself. DH and his friend did our main floor, and I did my master and laundry rooms myself and they turned out great. If you see any imperfections in your drywall, sand them out, wash your walls, and get a forgiving paint. I know everyone on here loves Aura, but I prefer Behr Ultra. It goes on great and it's really affordable. Duron's higher end stuff is nice too and it's all Sherwin Williams color.

No, no, no. Not Behr.

Quality paint costs $60 a gallon.

the new behr premium self priming is excellent and cheap

Get a couple of estimates. I have a 3500 SF and 5 yrs ago when I was getting quotes for just the living, dining and family room I was getting quotes of $5k to $7k. I found a painter through my cousin who did the painting for me for $1k --- I purchased the paint but he supplied everything else.

FWIW -- I recently used the Behr premium with self priming and it was easy to use and great paint. Much better than the Benjamin Moore I purchased a couple of years ago.

Anonymous wrote:Farrow & Ball is supposed to be great. The ladies on the Washington Post home chat rave about it. It's really expensive -- runs about $100/gallon. I have to tell you, though, that I was comparing BM and F&B colors. The F&B color just popped against my fabric and I couldn't find anything comparable in BM. I'm still debating whether to actually buy it, though. It's a lot of money for paint on top of the cost of labor...

Have you tried to have the color matched? Get a sample of the color in the F&B and then a matched BM sample and throw both on the walls to see if it looks as good.