Clark + Kensington Paint

I recently had the chance to test out Ace Hardware’s Clark + Kensington paint. Ace Hardware hooked me up with both interior and exterior paint to try out for my laundry room and the exterior door leading to it.

They first sent me a color deck to choose from, and my first thought was niiiice. These are some great colors.

I could tell that each and every color was well thought out and I felt like I couldn’t go wrong with any of them.

Our laundry room has existing beige tile with dark gray grout and the walls were just a basic white.

I’d love to change out this tile someday (or at the very least, change the grout color), but as I’m sure many of you can relate, I’m working with what I have for the time being. My goal in this room was to take the focus away from the floors, but still compliment them with the right paint color. I decided on Baby Elephant which is a dark warm gray that I thought would tie in nicely to the floors and contrast against our white appliances.

Our exterior door from the patio leading into the laundry room started out like this. I know, right? I’m so glad I had the chance to finally spruce this up.

Painting this door was final piece to finish off our patio renovation. The goal for me here was to choose a color that would help highlight and coordinate with the flagstone and our bronze furniture. Our house has a medium blue trim, so I didn’t want to compete with it and create a rainbow effect by introducing another color. But I also wanted to do something different from the same blue we have on the rest of the exterior trim, so I picked out a dark bronzy color called Spanish Eyes.

And can I just say, I’d love to be the person that gets to come up with paint color names. Baby Elephant and Spanish Eyes, what fun color names.

I started out painting the laundry room since it was February at the time and too cold to tackle painting the door. See my first swipe of paint? This is some good coverage.

The paint rolled on equally well. I also appreciated the low VOC formula in this tight space.

Ah, so much better now. Since it is a paint in primer in one, I couldn’t have asked for better coverage going from white to a darker color like this. It was easy to apply and went on super smooth.

Not surprisingly, I’ve been finding lots of excuses to throw things in the wash now.

The darker color cozies up the room nicely, and as I hoped, it looks great with the existing tile. Before when I would walk into the room, all I saw staring back at me was the gray grout. Grout grout grout, and not in a good way. Now I hardly notice it. I’m always so amazed at what the right paint color can do for a space.

Does this look familiar? I had some fabric left over from my no sew table runner that I thought would add a little color and pattern in here by framing it.

Baby Elephant looks great with colorful accents.

We had a long run of cold weather for awhile here, including an early March snow, so I had to sit and stare at the can of Spanish Eyes couple weeks while I waited for the weather to warm up. Torture for a paint lover like me! We finally had a gorgeous couple of days this past weekend where I could paint the door. Me + 60 degree day + a gallon of paint = a perfect Saturday afternoon.

The exterior paint can be applied in temperatures as low as 35 degrees…so when I say it was too cold, I mean too cold for me. The paint can handle it.

I like to use a combination of a small roller and a brush when painting doors. I use the roller to get a lot of paint on the door quickly, then I smooth it out with a brush. It helps keep the brush marks to a minimum this way, and it’s fast! I used that technique with the Clark + Kensington Exterior paint, and it worked flawlessly.

First, I rolled (with a paint smudged thumb, apparently).

Then I brushed. Rinse, repeat. You can still see a lot of brush marks in this picture because it was really wet. They smoothed out almost completely as it dried.

It has true one coat coverage.

The color looks even better than I expected. It really works so well with the stone patio and furniture, and it coordinates really nicely with our existing blue trim. It was the final touch our patio needed to finish up its overhaul, and it is a welcoming entry into our laundry room.

There is another door to our garage right next to the one to the laundry room, so I tackled it as well and couldn’t be more pleased with the outcome. Marty and I kept finding excuses to walk outside on the patio to check out the doors. Such an improvement.

I definitely think the Clark + Kensington line of paint is a great bang for your buck since it starts at just $25.99/gallon, and if you use your Ace Rewards card, it will count towards your points.

Have you had a chance to try out Clark + Kensington paint? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Sources:

• Laundry room paint color: Clark + Kensington Premium Interior Flat in Baby Elephant
• Exterior door paint color: Clark + Kensington Premium Exterior Semi-Gloss Enamel in Spanish Eyes

**I was provided the Clark + Kensigton paint by Ace Hardware, however all opinions are my own. 

P.S. – Ace Hardware is having another Free Paint Saturday this weekend. Print out your coupon and make sure you head over this Saturday to get your quart of Clark + Kensington paint!

Linking up to: Funky Junk Interiors, Savvy Southern Style, Remodelaholic,The DIY Show Off, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Home Stories A2Z