Please help with bad paint job

[AM]

Hello:

I just finished painting my daughter's room with Valspar American Tradition Interior Flat Enamel in Lemon Twist yellow color. Before this paint job, the walls had only painter's beige which was original to the house, and ten years old. It had never been painted on.

Now the walls have turned streaky, and there is somewhat of a bluish tint to the yellow and looks horrible. Please help if you know what might be going wrong.

By the way, on the label of my paint, it reads in small print "Base 1"

-- anybody know what that means?

I painted a similar room for my other daughter using Flat Enamel Latex paint in another brand and it is perfect in one single coat!!

Please help and thank you! Anu

[Norminn]

Is this a custom color? If you still have the paint chip, paint half from your bucket of paint and see if there is contrast when it dries. If so, the mix wasn't done right and the seller might replace it with the right color. Or .. is there carpet or bedding that reflects the bluish tinge?

Streaky? Paint not mixed, wall dirty, or needs another coat.

[dpb]

Other poster _may_ have gotten an answer, but not too likely imo. IOW, possible, but not probable unless you had the paint for quite some time after buying it and didn't stir it up at all before painting or they didn't mix it at the store for you.

I'd guess it simply was a color that didn't cover adequately in one coat and that if you apply another coat it will be ok. Do need to check other poster's idea, just in case.

"Base 1" is indication of which tint base this is from the manufacturer and is significant for the tint amounts to achieve the desired color. Other than that, it's of no significance to end user. (Unless, of course, they didn't use the right color card at the store...is the color what you expected but just not good cover or is it not close to sample, either?)

[Art]

There is a condition in paint where surfactants somehow screw up. Something like that. Check Behr, Sherwin Williams or other large paint site for their troubleshooting page. I bet you find an example.

[John Grabowski]

If the original paint was ten years old, than it is quite porous and will suck up the new paint. A second or third coat may be called for. I'm not familiar with your brand of paint, but I have always liked Benjamin Moore for it's ability to look good after one coat. I used that stuff at HD once and wound up having to paint from a white wall to a light mint green with three coats to get it to look good.

As for the bluish tint; it is possible that the paint was not stirred enough.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Yellow is the problem. For some reason, yellow is a bitch to work with to cover other colors. You may need two more coats for it to cover properly. You may have done better with a primer first, but even with that, yellow does not cover as well as other colors.

[Curmudgeon]

Bright and/or rich colors - especially reds, yellows, oranges - tend to be semi-transparent...part of that is the colorant used and part how the base must be made to handle these colors. I always recommend that customers working in these colors put down a tinted primer - either in a shade of the color itself or in a shade of gray (for darker, deeper reds especially. Still likely to take at least two coats. BTW, believe it or not, white is the worst color to paint over using these colors.

[AM]

Hi all:

I am back... I am taking a break after painting two walls with second coat. You were all correct -- yellow is hard to work with, more than one coat helps, and the paint is not stirred properly. This tin of paint I opened for the second coat is worse than the first -- I am seeing soft mushy grey pellets while I'm painting. I will take it up with Lowe's and Valspar to get their help to rectify.

Thank you very much for taking time to reply. Wish you all a Very Happy New Year!

-Anu

AM wrote:

[m Ransley]

Even in quality paint yellow cover the least, so it might be a 3 coat job, blue is the paint was not mixed.

[Tater]

look at my thread "painting rainbows" the sky blue was less than a week old and needed to be stirred for a good 5-10 minutes before the color evened out, but......

how old is the paint? did the paint freeze? are the pellets from the paint or is it a cheap brush?

never seen paint do THAT before, unless it was 5-10 years old, in an unheated garage

[Norminn]

The brand name is a fooler - I did a google search and find "Valspar American Tradition" on valsparatlowes.com. Perhaps a cheaper version for mass marketers? I never buy paint at the box stores - tried it once.

The soft, mushy grey pellets are probably the tinting color that didn't mix adequately, or the original base tint that settled. Added tinting color should have been mostly yellow, maybe a touch of brown. Is the formula on the can?

[noname87]

When I painted my daughter's room yellow, I needed 3 coats. Yellows and reds can be tough to get a even coverage. I would try at least 3 coats.

AM wrote:

[Father Haskell]

That's my guess. There's probably less opaquing pigment in the base, since mixing these hues with white yields pastel shades with no vibrance. I'm painting a bookcase in "claret wine," Rustoleum's name for burgundy. Tinting the primer with said oxblood red paint produced the most nightmarish of all colors, an exact match for Barbie pink.

Ben Moore's "classic burgundy" alkyd covers every bit as poorly, so it's not a fault with the brand.

I'm tempted to try rust red primer underneath the burgundy next time. It'll probably still take me five coats to get the right coverage.

[W????n]

Try a gray primer.