The 10 Best Interior Paints of 2024
Table Of Content
Our real estate pros encourage people to paint their houses before selling them. Typically, starting cost for interior paint is around $25 per gallon, with more premium paints costing from $50 to $150 (sometimes more) per gallon. From paw prints to grubby fingerprints, it seems like there are a million things that get in the way of pristine walls. That’s why using a stain-resistant option like Behr Marquee is essential when painting high-traffic areas in your home such as living rooms, kids' bedrooms, bathrooms, and kitchens. It’s also an especially good option for kitchen cabinets, trims, and interior furniture, all of which tend to accumulate stains over time. The paint line comes already premixed and has a limited color range (mostly light colors and pastels).
Aura Interior Acrylic Paint & Primer
Good-quality paint can be costly, but we found that Glidden Premium interior paint in an eggshell finish provided coverage as good as some of the more expensive brands we tested—at a more reasonable price. Glidden Premium is a combination paint-plus-primer product, so we expected it to cover well, and it did. After applying a single brushed-on coat, we could no longer see the black permanent marker circle we’d drawn on the test board. This may have been partially due to the dark tone of paint we tested, called Royal Indigo, but it was still impressive.
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We could do all the lab testing in the world, but we’d never match these guys' combined 152 years of painting experience. This paint goes on easy and combines coverage, durability, and cleanability. Some testers found the overall texture and finish quality to be rougher than other paints, a possible downside of the remarkably opaque formulation.
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Clean the Trim and Siding With TSP Solution
We brushed on a single coat—this paint-and-primer combo is relatively thick—and we could not see any evidence of the marker beneath the paint when it dried. This is a relatively thick paint, but it went on smoothly when using a brush on the test board and when rolling on a larger drywall sheet. When the second coat dried, we could barely see the brush marks—it smoothed out so nicely. We did detect an odor when applying Premium Plus, but it is a low-VOC product. Oil-based paints are more durable than water-based (a.k.a. latex or acrylic) paints. Manufacturers offer only a few oil-based paints for interior use these days because they typically emit unpleasant, potentially unhealthy fumes.
Given that there are nearly 60 interior latex paints available from the major brands, this kind of consensus is impressive. The first step in the house-painting process is to choose an exterior paint or, in some cases, stain. Both will do a good job of protecting the wood underneath, but stains can be easier to touch up or recoat. Stains involve less prep work when it’s time to repaint the entire home, though a glossy finish is not an option. Paint will usually hide imperfections better and is available in different sheens, but can flake or peel over time (especially if there is moisture under the paint).
Using plastic sheathing or plastic bags, cover porch and flood lights, and tape the plastic in place with painter’s tape. Also, if you’re using a paint sprayer, be sure to cover the windows and doors with painter’s tape and plastic sheeting as well. While some scraping of loose paint is typical, if your entire home needs to be scraped before applying a coat of paint or stain, it might be a better idea to call a professional for help. If your home is smaller and a single story, you can get the job done without a pressure washer. Instead, use a long-handled brush, a bucket, some house cleaning solution, and a hose.
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There’s no maintenance required, and you won’t need to store it either. We also found Benjamin Moore’s website to be helpful with color selection. A number of resources are provided, including a phone app that will match the color of anything that you photograph, so if you see a flower with just the right yellow, you should be able to get a color match.
The goal is to remove all of the dirt, pollen, grease, and other impurities that could affect how the paint adheres to the wood. The best colors for bedrooms are nonvisually stimulating hues such as blues and greens or cool grays and neutral creams. However, the best paint to cover dark walls is often another deep or dark tone. With Sherwin-Williams Emerald enamel on walls, doors, and trim, smudges and smears from little fingers wipe off with ease. We’ve used a lot of Sherwin-Williams paint over the years, but this was our first experience with their Emerald urethane-based enamel, and it won us over. We waited 2 weeks before spraying it with an all-purpose cleaner and rubbing it with a white rag.
Precision Painting Plus of Los Angeles
The paint also doubles as a primer if the surface is a similar color. However, if the area is badly stained, the brand recommends you apply a stain-blocking primer, as the paint contains no stain-blockers. For this reason, we don’t think it’s the paint you want in high-traffic areas like hallways or a kids’ bedroom.
It doesn’t give the coverage of our other picks, but it’s a solid choice. For example, the Glidden wasn't as good in our tests as others at resisting coffee and tomato stains, so it's not the best choice for a busy kitchen. But in low-traffic parts of the home — or to add a fresh splash of color to a rental apartment — Glidden Premium is an excellent option. When all the paint was applied, dried and put through our battery of tough tests, Behr Marquee came out on top with the best overall score. If you’re looking for an extremely well-balanced paint to handle a range of interior projects, this Home Depot-exclusive is the one to reach for.
Oil-based paints should optimally dry to the touch in a few hours, can be recoated by 4 hours, and fully cure within 7 to 14 days. Most paints require the full 14 days to be cured sufficiently for washing or scrubbing. A new coat of paint is a simple and affordable way to update the interior of a home. Although the color is crucial to achieving the desired overall effect, choosing the best paint for interior walls is just as essential to ensure pleasing results. With so many recent improvements in paint formulations, including an increasing number of eco-friendly options, we were curious about which of the brands and types available today were really the best—so we tested them.
Although, in that case, you might have to apply several coats to the surface. We appreciate that the paint is quick-drying—it’s dry to the touch within 30 to 60 minutes. Whether painting walls, furnishings, cabinets, or trim, quality interior house paint is the key to good-looking, long-lasting results. But the sheer variety of interior paints to choose from at home improvement centers and hardware stores can be confusing. Purchasing the wrong one could negatively affect your project’s ease, speed, and durability—and even impair indoor air quality. Half of the painters we spoke to named Regal Select specifically as the high-quality paint of choice that they use and would recommend to their friends and family.
This is the best interior paint when you need a lot of coverage but want to stay within budget. PPG Paint Multi-Pro is extremely affordable per gallon and provides smooth coverage with a brush or roller. It’s also quite effective for hiding wall imperfections or repainting walls or cabinets. To help you pick the right paint for your home renovation project, we researched factors such as gloss, finish, color selection, dry time, recommended surfaces, and paint durability. We also spoke to Mothershead as well as Bart Caldwell, owner of Caldwell Painting in Tennessee, and Nick Lopez, founder of Lime Painting. After a week, we sprayed the painted test board with an all-purpose cleaner and scrubbed it with a white rag—no color came off on the rag.
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