Trying to open space up in your basement or garage, but don’t know what to do with your old paint? Though you can save money doing some painting yourself you are still left with all of the left over paint and equipment. Hiring a professional residential  or commercial painting company can help free the burden of excess clutter. Old paint especially has a lot of harsh chemicals that are bad for the environment and not properly disposing it can create pollution to our drinking water and waterways. Fortunately Elysium Painting cares about the environment and we want to help educate people on properly disposing of such materials. Of course you wouldn’t have to worry about old paint laying around and taking up space if you had your home painted by the professional Michigan painters of Elysium Painting! 

Is the Paint still Good?

It’s important to remember that Solvent-based paints have about a 15-year shelf life. An easy trick to remember is that if you can stir it, it’s probably okay to use. There may be a “skin” on the surface of the paint, but that’s ok because you can easily remove it.  Latex paint has a shelf life of about 10 years, but if it has been subject to freezing, it may not be usable. A simple way to test the paint is to stir the paint then brush it onto newspaper. If the paint has lumps it is a sign that it is no longer usable.

What to keep

Deciding on what paints to keep can be a hard process, but here are a few useful tips that should make the selection process easier. If the paint colors are still on your walls and you aren’t thinking of painting them a different color anytime soon, it makes sense to hang on to them for future touch ups. It’s important to make sure that the lids are sealed tightly and if there is only a small amount of paint left in a large container you can transfer it to a smaller one to clear up some space.

Free Paint

A great way to get rid of your old paint that is still usable is to offer it to your friends, family and even neighbors! You can even donate paint to local charities including habitat for humanity and local organizations for arts and crafts.

How to Dispose of Paint 

Not all paints can be disposed in the same manner and you have to pay careful attention to what type of paint you are disposing. It’s important to know what type of paint you are disposing of because if not disposed properly it can create pollution. Only one gallon of paint can contaminate thousands of gallons of water, harm fish and aquatic plant life. Hiring a professional painting crew can not only save you time, free up space from paint cans and save you money, but also the environment! Elysium Painting Company holds itself to very high standards especially when something like a gallon of paint can cause so much damage to our earth. The following are ways to properly dispose of your paint:

Oil-based and alkyd paints: Check your state’s Department of Environmental Conservation website to see when the next household waste collection day is in your community. Household waste collection is great because not only can you bring your old paint there, but also other toxic products, such as pesticides, paint removers and used solvents.

Latex and acrylic paints: Many municipalities will allow you to solidify these paints and throw them away with the household trash. One way to solidify paints is to to mix it with a clay-based cat litter at a ratio of two parts litter to one part paint. It’s important to solidify the paint in a well-ventilated area that’s off-limits to pets and kids.

 Professional Painting Company with References

We are here to help you and want your painting experience to be a good one. By hiring a painting company to do the dirty work you can eliminate worrying about polluting the environment with your leftover paint as well as free up clutter. We strive to be Metro-Detroit’s best painting company and we pride ourself with our hundreds of great references and free painting estimates! Please check out our about us and contact us today for any further questions about your home painting questions.

Interior Painting Attention to Detail 

It’s all about the detail work and our professional Michigan painters can help add curb appeal and value to your home while helping set it aside from the average American home. Ceilings are not usually given much attention or thought and many times are overlooked. Most ceilings are painted white and conform all the rooms in your home making it harder for certain rooms to “pop” and grab your attention. Although most homes ceilings are painted white many have given in to the art of decorating their ceilings by using painting techniques. Many designers spend just as much time in luxury homes designing the paint schemes for the ceiling as they do the walls. The effort to design and paint your ceiling really pays off because ceiling design can tie all of the elements of the rooms decor and intricate details together and crown the room with a sophisticated look.

Architectural Features 

You can put your homes existing architectural features to work and incorporate them in your design. Dome and tray ceilings look fabulous when properly decorated with faux painting techniques. By leaving your ceilings white you are not doing justice to help bring out the beauty of the architectural features. A knowledgable and experienced painter can turn the most plain and boring ceilings into works of art.  You can use this technique in virtually every room in your home including your dining room, foyer, bedrooms and and living room. Painting your ceiling is a guaranteed way to add elegance, drama and a “wow” factor to your living spaces.

Examples of Decorative Painting Techniques for Ceilings

Glazing is a technique that uses several faux glazed finishes that can be in different colors, shades and layers. Depending on the color combinations and layers you chose will help determine the end result, which can range from a delicate and soft design to a more bold and dramatic one.

Venetian plaster in an old or new home can create an elegant and sophisticated look when done properly. Venetian plaster is smooth and has a stone-like appearance. Choosing this option can make a room look grander because its affect reflects light  which also helps open up a room and make it look larger.

Clouds can help your home or business feel more tranquil and airy by adding a feeling of life and movement to a room.

Gilded ceilings can help highlight decorative crown molding and create an awe-inspiring space.

Stencils will embellish your ceilings with decorative painting patterns which can be as elaborate and complex or simple as you’d like.

Professional Painting Company

Elysium offers free painting estimates and can help you chose which painting scheme and colors would work best. Not only do we offer free estimates, but also offer unbeatable warranties because we stand behind our work. Please contact us today and let us help you with your upcoming projects!

Interested in having your home or business painted in the near future, but still looking for a great full service company? Look no further because we have what it takes to make a very happy you by taking the greatest attention towards detail and preparation. Elysium Painting Company is not to be confused with student painting companies because we are a completely professional painting company with the best painting team in the Metro-Detroit area. Of course we have hundreds of references for you to see that have had a great experience working with our company.

Elysium Painting Code of Conduct

House painting should be clean, organized and thorough – but this is not often the case! To show full transparency, we offer our Handbook for the Perfect Painter, which is a critical section of our Code of Conduct. You might be surprised by a couple of the items, and our crews follow these guidelines distinctivegrassly.

References

We want to assure you that you will be in good hands throughout your entire project which is why we offer you hundreds of references upon your free estimate. We only use references that customers have allowed us to use so you can rest assure knowing that your personal identity will not be disclosed to anyone if you’d like.

Post-Project Survey’s

It’s important to receive information from our customers especially post-project surveys because it helps us know what you liked and how we can better assist you in the future. Your input helps us become an even better company. We look forward to hearing from you about your upcoming projects. Please check out our about us section of our website and leave us a comment if you have any questions.

It’s all about using every bit of space you can in a small room and luckily by choosing the right color you can fool the eye into thinking the space is much larger! Of course you want the best painters in the Ann Arbor area to help you decide which colors would work best for your small space. Have a smaller room opening up into a larger room and having a hard time deciding which colors would work best?

Color Combinations that Help Create Illusion

Many color combinations can be used to help the flow of transitioning to one room to another, but cream colors and icy blues can be great color combinations. It’s all about illusion when trying to make a small space seem larger. Any professional painting service would know that light colors make a room look bigger and brighter. Using light and bright colors on your walls helps create reflection making the space feel open and airy, which will help create the effect made by natural sunlight. Selecting softer tones of greens and blues will help create an optimum effect. If you want to incorporate darker colors it’s best to use them on the border and trim, but if you paint your moldings lighter colors then your walls it makes the space feel much larger.

Other Tips and Tricks

If you chose to paint your walls dark colors it’s best to finish them off with a clear coat of satin polyurethane because it helps create a touch of lightness by creating a bright sheen, which can also add a touch of lightness to their deep color tones. If you have a small short room you can help enhance it by painting thin vertical stripes 3 to 5 inches wide in two tone-on-tone shades. It’s important to remember that cool colors give the effect of the walls receding while warm colors appear to come toward you. You can also incorporate furniture in a small room to help make it seem larger. Furniture made out of metals, mirrors and polished surfaces and glass can help reflect light and open up a room.

Experienced Painters

If you would like to leave your painting project up to the professionals we are more then happy to help! Our painting crews have years of experience and we are a licensed, bonded and insured company with hundreds of references. We would be glad to walk you through the process of getting a free painting estimate and letting you know what the job will entail. We look forward to hearing from you!

Low VOC Paints For Your Home

Interior paint and VOCs

The majority of interior paints can be narrowed down to three different types:

1. Zero-VOC Paint: If Zero-VOC paint is used, it is perfectly safe to use and even sleep in the room the same day it is painted. This paint is virtually odorless and does not emit toxic chemicals. Our experienced painters recommend two great VOC-free paints are Benjamin Moore’s Natura and Sherwin Williams Harmony.

2. Low-VOC Paint: Any paint with a “Green Seal“ logo of any kind has few enough VOC’s that it is harmless to use the room the same day the paint is applied. However, the paint is not odorless and will smell for at least 24 hours after painting. Typically the smell will lessen in 2-3 days if you keep the room well ventilated.

3. Oil-based or Regular Latex Paint: Paint that is not eco-friendly or oil-based may take quite a bit of curing time. Although the paint may dry within 2-8 hours after painting, it could take over 2 weeks for the released toxins to abate. If you are using this paint for a bedroom, you should wait at least 2 weeks before sleeping in the room. The VOC’s initially released are strong enough to possibly produce adverse health effects if inhaled in a un-ventilated room.

Interior painting safety

For those of our customers who are most concerned with interior air quality, we recommend using only Zero or Low-VOC paints the home interiors. Homeowners should know that almost any interior paint sold in the US is completely safe. EPA regulations require all paints on the market to be safe for the home, so there is no need to be overly concerned.

Professional Painters Recommend Sherwin Williams Harmony

Painting estimates

If you need help selecting the best paint for you, one of our experienced project managers will be happy to help. Call us for a free painting estimate and we’ll walk you through all of your options, colors, and brands. We also offer color consultations in your home!

Several exterior colors can be used on Victorian homes.

Exterior paint color selection can be daunting for most of our clients. Unless you’re building a home from the ground up, most homes come with a color already chosen for you, but often it’s one the homeowner doesn’t like or needs to upgrade due to deterioration from the elements. Choosing your home’s exterior coloris a big decision, one that will last for ten years or more and can’t be redone as easily or inexpensively as a bedroom or bathroom. There are several factors a homeowner must take into consideration, but the most important is the style and architecture of the home and the colors of the neighborhood and region. The easiest place to start for choosing exterior color is to take note of the colors that already exist in the roof, masonry, and other architectural accents.

Ann Arbor Style

The Craftsman style is popular in the Ann Arbor area and typically includes a low-pitched roof and tapered square pillars that frame a recessed porch and entry. Handcrafted wood and natural stone are often present inside and out. Craftsman-style homes look best when the main color of the home echoes those mixed materials, whether it’s a shade of taupe, mushroom, gray, brown, or green. There are many smaller brick Tudor style homes in lower Michigan as well. Tudor style is known for its high-pitched roof, recessed entryway, and stone or brick chimneys or accents. The trim or main color is traditionally a shade of medium to dark brown but any earth tones will enhance this Old English style.

Craftsman style home exteriors look great in neutral tones.

Michigan Victorian homes

Elaborate Victorian-style homes demand a more colorful palette to accent the intricate architectural moldings or gingerbread details. With these homes, anything goes! Let the beautiful brightly colored Victorians of Traverse City and Mackinac Island be your guide and have fun. There really is no right or wrong if you stick with three to five complementary hues.

Professional Painter Color Advice

Professional painters typically recommend a clean crisp white with contrasting shutters in a deep shade of blue, green, or gray for classic colonials. It’s always safe to choose a white or neutral color for the exterior to showcase the home’s architecture. Try choosing a bold color for the front door. Consider painting just the front door a fun color to create an attractive, welcoming entry.

Color consultations

When choosing your home’s exterior color, painting contractors suggest you keep the following things in mind. It’s important to make a timeless choice that not only adds curb appeal and increases resale value, but also shares some similarity with the homes in your neighborhood. Large surfaces make paint look lighter, especially in sunlight, so it never hurts to sample a few darker shades. Paint colors will also look darker in shaded lots, so consider paler colors for homes filtered by a lot of trees. Emphasize architectural details and windows with a complementary accent color but choose colors that are related. Moving up and down the paint strip in the fan deck is the easiest way to find colors that work well together. Simpler homes require as few as two colors, but elaborate homes can use up to five. Too much info? That’s ok – we’re here to help. We offer color consultations and free painting estimates. Hope to hear from you soon!

Interior paint that's safe for the home.

Interior paint types

The majority of interior paints can be narrowed down to three different types:

1. Zero-VOC Paint: If Zero-VOC paint is used, it is perfectly safe to use and even sleep in the room the same day it is painted. This paint is virtually odorless and does not emit toxic chemicals. Our experienced painters recommend two great VOC-free paints are Benjamin Moore’sNatura and Sherwin Williams Harmony.
2. Low-VOC Paint: Any paint with a “Green Seal“ logo of any kind has few enough VOC’s that it is harmless to use the room the same day the paint is applied. However, the paint is not odorless and will smell for at least 24 hours after painting. Typically the smell will lessen in 2-3 days if you keep the room well ventilated.
3. Oil-based or Regular Latex Paint: Paint that is not eco-friendly or oil-based may take quite a bit of curing time. Although the paint may dry within 2-8 hours after painting, it could take over 2 weeks for the released toxins to abate. If you are using this paint for a bedroom, you should wait at least 2 weeks before sleeping in the room. The VOC’s initially released are strong enough to possibly produce adverse health effects if inhaled in a un-ventilated room.

Your interior should be safe to use the same day it is painted.

House paint safety

For those of our customers who are most concerned with interior air quality, we recommend using only Zero or Low-VOC paints the home interiors. Homeowners should know that almost any interior paint sold in the US is completely safe. EPA regulations require all paints on the market to be safe for the home, so there is no need to be overly concerned.

Free painting estimates

If you need help selecting the best paint for you, one of our experienced project managers will be happy to help. call us for a free painting estimate and we’ll walk you through all of your options, colors, and brands.

Interior painting with mid tones are perfect for rooms with no windows.

Dark paint colors

When painting rooms with Northern exposure, rooms with no windows, or rooms where not enough daylight comes in because of the trees etc are blocking sunlight from the window, dark paint colors are the worst choice. Interior paint colors like burgundy, chocolate or navy blue may look great on a color chip or in a big house with large windows and plenty of sunlight. But use the same colors in an already dark room, and you are guaranteed to get a depression pretty soon – the room will look gloomy 24/7.

Dark colors can be depressing in a small room with no windows.

Light paint colors

Here’s the kicker: very light, pale colors are also a bad choice for dark rooms. Contrary to what you may have been led to believe, pale colors do not make dark rooms seem lighter. What they do is make the walls look dirty. With pale or pastel paint colors (including most shades of white), you need a lot of natural light to see the color undertone. That’s why whites and pastels look best in sunny rooms, where you can see the nuances of shades. You turn on the lights every time you walk into a dark room anyway, even if it’s painted a very light color. Have you noticed that a pale color doesn’t help add light by itself and you still need to use artificial lighting? White and other pale colors in a dark room simply don’t make sense – they don’t get the job done. Another painting contractor scoop is that the light color you pick for a dark room will look nothing like the shade you saw on a color chip. You won’t be able to see the undertones that make the color interesting. All you will see will be gray shadows, even with the lights on.

Free painting estimates

Mid-tones are the colors you see right in the middle of a color strip. They are deep enough to let you see the actual color both in daytime and in the evening. In other words, they fulfill the purpose of using color in a home, which is to add something to a room – warmth, style, character and atmosphere. But they are not as deep as to make your room look gloomy. For darker rooms, mid-tone room paint colors are not too dark, not too light, but just right! Still feeling lost? We’re here to help. Call us for a free painting estimate and our experienced painters can help you pick the perfect color for any space.

Interior painting for spring

Interior painting

One of the best ways to begin is to thoroughly assess the painted condition of your entire property, both inside and out. It’s a good idea to take a slow walk through and around your home, with paper and a pen. Bring along your significant other – not only because two sets of eyes are better than one, but to make sure the two of you are on the same page. Inside the home, the desire for a more attractive appearance may take precedence over maintenance needs, but don’t neglect to note the condition of your interior paint. Are you tired of your room colors, or are you simply ready for a change? Jot down your thoughts, along with any ideas you have for new paint colors. Have your painted walls seen better days? Is the trim banged up? How do the baseboards look? And don’t fail to assess the condition of your ceilings; most people paint them far less frequently than the walls. . .and they often look that way.

Exterior painting protects your home

Exterior painting

Outside the home, start your inspection at the front door, which gives friends and visitors their first impression of your home. Next, look for signs of paint failure on your exterior walls – evidenced by bare wood, peeling or flaking paint, mildew or mold. If you have any masonry (on walls, foundation or a fireplace), check for white, crusty efflorescence. Aluminum siding? Look for vulnerable bare metal and unsightly white oxidation, an indication that corrosion has set in. Check all the areas where two different surfaces come together. Make sure they are properly caulked and that the caulk is in good condition. Naturally, you’ll want to inspect your exterior trim, windows, shutters, and doors, but don’t forget to also look at your garage door, gutters, downspouts, railings, and decks. A fresh coat of paint can help maintain them all!

Professional painter advice

Now that you have an inventory of your painting needs, categorize the projects in terms of their urgency or desirability. If you’re having trouble prioritizing, try giving every job a numerical rating, indicating which ones to do first. Generally speaking, it’s better to get to the exterior paint jobs first, starting with the areas of greatest need. By delaying urgent outdoor painting projects, you run the risk that your home will suffer damage. Sometimes it makes the most sense to address the most urgent outdoor needs until you run into weather that is not good for outdoor painting – for example, especially wet, cold or windy days, which may interfere with the paint setting correctly.

Free painting estimates

Still feel lost? That’s OK – we’re here to help! We can visit with you, walk through your home with you, help you prioritize based on your budget, and give you a free painting estimate. We’re also happy to answer general questions over the phone – hope to hear from you soon!

Interior painting estimates help you choose colors

Professional painters

We’re so glad to hear it! Our estimators specify several preparatory elements we consider essential and our clients see them pay off long term through longevity. Here are some of the multitude of steps we take to make sure your project looks exactly as you envisioned it and lasts as long as possible.

Thorough preparation

We take the time to repair all nail pops. This is an aesthetic matter as there’s nothing technically “wrong.” The bare minimum for a decent paint job only requires a very general “fix”, but when the new paint goes on the walls nail pops become very visible, and sometime an entire wall has to be repainted if an extra round of spackling, sanding and priming is required to fill in these spots. In an extreme scenario, untreated recessed nail pops can cause paint to peel. We’ve only seen this in a few cases, but why risk it? Feather sanding is another technique that adds extra time but is well worth it. Feather sanding makes the difference between just evening out new spackle or durabond on a wall and making sure the wall is seamlessly smooth so the repair doesn’t stand out. Ann Arbor painters often see this in old houses with many layers of paint that weren’t properly attended to. Feather sanding does take more time than regular sanding because it is done in stages of several types of sandpaper to ensure you get the smoothest appearance possible, which matters when you see the walls every day. We’re a house painting company that cares!

Faux finishes add warmth to your interior

Free painting estimates

Thank you to all of you who have read our blog, posted online reviews, taken an extra few minutes on the phone to share your experience with our company or with others, filled out our post project survey, agreed to speak with future clients as a painting reference, or written us a letter. Our growth and success stem directly from taking your comments to heart and we can’t get enough of them. If you have an experience you’d like to share, we’d love to hear from you! New to Elysium Painting Company? Call us for a free painting estimate – we’d love to hear from you!