# Olympic Premium Flat and Semi-Gloss Ultra White



## fozzie (Oct 5, 2009)

My son just closed on a 80 yr old house that looks like the interior has not been painted since the 1970's. I am going to paint the front room, living room, and three bedrooms walls and ceiling with Olympic premium Flat in ultra white. I will also be painting the kitchen and bathroom in Olympic ultra white semi-gloss. ( I know I should have got BM regal, But I got a steal at Lowes for two 5 gal buckets of Olympic premium @ $60 each).
My laziness goes so far that I plan to just dust the walls where I'm painting flat over flat, and skip the primer.
I'll give the kitchen and BR a light sanding as they will be semi gloss over semi gloss. Again no primer.
Has anyone out there used the Olympic premium product, and can I roll dice by skipping wall prep if there's no grease or crayon marks?
:whistling2:..or am I whistling past the graveyard?


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## Matthewt1970 (Sep 16, 2008)

Cheapest paint you could find and no primer. You should be fine :laughing: :bangin:


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## Faron79 (Jul 16, 2008)

*Trainwreck time...*

Yeah...let's see....

No washing, over old paint, no priming...

If you like being in a "Paint Trainwreck" use your plan of action.

Faron


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## chrisn (Dec 23, 2007)

You had at LEAST better thoroughly clean the kitchen and bath walls, you may not see the grease, oil, etc but it is there and the cheap paint will not adhere to it.:no:


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## user1007 (Sep 23, 2009)

Matthewt1970 said:


> Cheapest paint you could find and no primer. You should be fine :laughing: :bangin:


Ditto this! Hope you really like painting because you will be doing it often the way you are approaching this. You might as well just pour your great bargain find Olympic paint on the floor since most of it will peel off and end up there in no time anyhow! Seriously, if you have not opened it, take the paint back, do the prep properly, and buy good paint. Even the contractor grades in SW or Ben Moore will be much better than the crap you bought. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS CHEAP PAINT when all is factored in.


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## fozzie (Oct 5, 2009)

*Appreciation*

Thank you to those who took the time to reply to my inquiry. As I expected, I was taken to task for skipping the wall washing stage. I was looking for more constructive critism on the choice of Paint. People found it easy to be critical of Olympic premium without ever having claimed to use it. I'm not one who believes Consumer reports is Gospel, but Olympic was picked as a "best buy" at $19/gal. I paid $11/gal on sale. BM is over $40/gal. So far, I got the "cheap paint rag" over Olympic, but no one can tell me why with any degree of validity. Please, will someone with Olympic premium flat experience weigh in?
Thanks:surrender:


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## user1007 (Sep 23, 2009)

We haven't used it for a reason. We have followed in the aftermath.

The contractor grades of either SW or Benjamin Moore will not cost you all that much more than you paid and you will be happier.


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## BMDealer (Dec 9, 2008)

Speaking as a BM dealer you get what you pay for.......what to expect from BM would be this
SuperHide Flat - around $17g - our 5s are $59
SuperSpec Flat - around $23g
Waterborne Ben - $27g
Regal Flat- $29
Natura Flat - $42
Aura Matte - $48
As you can see BM has the realm pretty well covered and I would put any of those products up against Olympic any day of the week. With proper prep of course, that is the most crucial part of any job....you skip steps in will come back to haunt you.

You may do just fine with Olympic just make sure you do the prep......


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## Matthewt1970 (Sep 16, 2008)

I would say as long as we are not talking about Big Box paint like Behr paint, then ya, you get what you pay for. To have $30 a gallon paint sag so bad that it starts to run with as thin a coat as you can possibly put on a wall, you are NOT getting $30 a gallon performance.


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## RegeSullivan (Dec 8, 2006)

First let me say I think it is really great you are helping your son with his new house. Second, some of the people on this forum can sound a little harsh but the advise is usually good. When the advise is bad lots of guys will jump in to correct it... harshly.


My suggestion and recommendations: Hold off painting until you have the time and money to do it well. Doing a anything less will have disappointing results you son will be living for a long time.

I have recently used Olympic paint purchased by a friend who insisted "paint is paint" and had coupons that made it almost free. After washing her kitchen walls and ceiling with TSP and using a quality primer and painting it looked just OK for about a month, until they tried to wipe the wall where something splashed off the sink. Also, where the counter was caulked the paint became soft and looked really bad.

If this house is empty now is a great time to go in with a shop vac and suck all the dust of the ceilings, walls and floor. Then using 5 gal buckets and sponge mops wash all the walls. Prime everything you intend to paint using properly tinted primers where you are using deep finish colors. Paint all the ceilings; tackle the walls and finally the trim. I always do two coats on the wall because the voids or baldies from one coat really bother me.

SW is personal favorite but there are many quality paints available. When you think of all the tools, time and work that goes into a quality paint job even quadrupling the cost of the paint really doesn’t amount to much for something that should last 10 or more years. 

Rege


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## ccarlisle (Jul 2, 2008)

I hear ya, fozzie...I would also take issue with your 'preparation' plan (no washing or priming) - or lack thereof - as the bigger issue facing you than the quality of the paint. What I cannot argue is the pricing of the paint you got...if you got a deal on an Olympic paint, that could be for a number of reasons apart from quality. But normally there is a correlation between the two, and as the BM dealer points out, there are a number of price points even for good paints.

I used to know PPG Paints as a good paint company; backed by a good parent company, they seemed to invest in research more than the others...I don't know them these days, but still PPG isn't a tin-pot company, so I can only assume they know how to make great paints. Now the fact that there aren't many here who have experience with them may relate more to the source (being Lowes - instead of an "Olympic Paint Store"). 

Is Olympic's marketing channels - being through Lowes - the reason for professionals not using them, I don't know. Maybe. But again, Olympic paints may be lumped in the same boat as Behr and Valspar - rightly or wrongly - because of where they're bought and sold.

The only true judge of quality of a paint is if the same painter does the same room with the same method - but using different paint - on a repetitive basis over time and the the results are tested for different qualitites. I value such opinions as they reflect almost perfect comparison bases; not price, not where-bought...just the same painter being used to doing things with one paint, then changing to another paint.

One-shot events, no comparative testing, or price-per-gallon aren't IMHO sufficient evidence to determine paint quality.


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## fozzie (Oct 5, 2009)

*Semi gloss question*

I used Gardz in the living room and dining room, and the Olympic flat covered in 2 coats. Very pleased with the results. My next challange is the Kitchen and Bath room. I used Original oil based Kilz on the semi-gloss in both rooms. The bath room is already white, so I should be able to get away with one coat of the Olympic white semi-gloss. The Kitchen was yellow, and the kilz didn't block enough of the yellow to allow me the get away with one coat of white semi-gloss. My question is should I put on two coats of semi gloss, or put on a coat of flat or water based primer, and then a top coat of semi gloss? I'm done with oil based products, as I'm still dizzy from the kilz fumes even with an ehaust fan. 
Fozzie


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## chrisn (Dec 23, 2007)

One coat of any primer is always enough.You may still be able to "see" the original color but the primer is still "blocking" it out for your finish paint to cover. You should still be putting on two finish coats. By the way ,Kilz original was way over kill for this job the dizziness was brain cell being wiped away the Gardz or almost any other pigmented primer would have done as well without destroying your brain.


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## fozzie (Oct 5, 2009)

*Semi-Gloss application*

Appreciate the response. I know flat paint can take more than one coat because the flat surface accepts multiple coats. I always wondered why you can use two or more coats of semi gloss on a new job, but told to use a de-glosser or primer when going over old semi gloss... Just wondering


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## chrisn (Dec 23, 2007)

All paint jobs should have 2 finish coats.


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## fozzie (Oct 5, 2009)

*Epilog*

Finished the house. Used Gardz in the living and dining rooms where we took off three layers of wallpaper. Highly recommend red devil one step spackle, used 2 gallons to patch plaster. Painted with 2 coats of Olympic flat white on ceilings and walls. He's got a lot of wood trim, so the white showcases the wood very nicely. Did not wash kitchen or bathroom walls, just used Zinsser oil based primer, and 2 coats of Olympic semi gloss in white. Covered fine. Did not wash 3 bedroom walls, used Zinsser water based primer and upgraded to Manor flat. Olympic and Manor are both made by Pitsburgh Paint. Manor costs about twice as much as Olympic, but it's like twice as concentrated..No splatter, no dripping, great coverage. If I had it to do over, I'd go with the top end paint in a heartbeat. I got lucky using the olympic, it did cover in two coats. But the Manor was more than worth the extra money in overall quality.
Next time, it's BM, Pratt & Lambert, or Top end PPG for me.
Thanks for all your responses. The Gardz was a great product for sealing walls after removing wallpaper. Even if it dripped a little, it dried clear, so you couldn't tell.
Fozzie:thumbsup:


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