Paint Is Colored Glue
Labor has become more expensive than parts, for many aspects of home repair. We haven&#x27;t adapted our habits to this.<p>The last time I let my university landlord paint my apartment, it took days to clear the furniture, and I was instructed to do no paint prep. There were peels coming down from the ceiling. The painters exploited this &quot;paint is glue&quot; theory by painting under the peels and pushing them flat. I channeled my desire to kill them on the spot by politely escorted them out in mid-job and never letting anyone paint for me again.<p>The next time I painted this apartment, I stripped the ceiling bare of its many poorly applied layers, and applied $500 of artist-grade acrylic primer and titanium white paint to the ceiling and walls. 15 years later, the apartment looks just-painted. Artist-grade acrylic paint is one of the best glues available, much more reliably so than oil paint.<p>In the years since, the best wall paints have come closer to artist-grade acrylic paints, and their glues are likely better tuned to typical conditions. Artist paint is more expensive and better. Carefully tuning a cheap glue is like botching an airplane hardware design and trying to fix it in software.<p>Later in a home, filling holes in contractor botched cabinet work, I started with artist-grade acrylic modeling putty, added just enough dye from the commercial paint manufacturer to match the existing cabinet paint, tweaked the gloss to also match, and created a one-step wood fill that disappeared into the existing paint job when dry. Much less shrinkage than commercial wood fills, and no primer or repainting needed. Again, acrylic art supplies making the best glue.