Color Changing Ceiling Paint

17 years ago

Hi,

I painted my living room ceiling with one of those paints that goes on with a tint of purple but dries white (Lowes "American Tradition). What a mistake!

After the first coat, I tried touching up a few places and it left what almost looked like water stains on the ceiling. Tried rolling over them again to see if spreading it out would help. Looked even worse. So I re-did the entire job and now the whole ceiling is splotchy. In small print on the can it says that the color can get "reactivated" when painted over and to avoid this, repaint with an oil-based primer.

Anyway, I've learned my lesson. I'm going to prime and repaint with a regular, high-quality paint. But I was wondering if anyone else has heard of this? This paint technology just seems like an incredibly bad idea.

John

Featured Answer

ghh3rd

17 years ago

I purchased a gallon of the Lowe's color changing American Tradition color changing white celing paint yesterday. I sprayed it onto my popcorn cieling with my Kobalt latex paint sprayer hooked to my compressor.
It was definitely a shade of pink for a few hours, but dried evenly to a bright white. Perhaps this paint likes to be sprayed. I would/will purchase this again for other rooms in my home.

Granville

ps: I will never, never try to roll paint onto a popcorn cieling again. Last year I tried to roll paint onto my living/dining room cieling (500 sq'), and had about 15 spots to repair afterward :-( Spraying the ceiling yesterday worked great!

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Comments (10)

Faron79
17 years ago
Hi John,
I kinda smiled when I read your post! I'm guessing your ceiling is the "popcorn" variety:

Actually it's not the "fading-paint" that's the problem here...there's about 3 things simultaneously...
* I work at a pretty busy ACE store, and we sell a lot of ACE'S "Simply Magic" blue-tinted ceiling paint that fades to white after a couple days.
* ACE was the first Co. to come out with the photo-reactive dye for ceilings about 3 yrs. ago.
* Most of these paints are a companies' upper-tier quality level...it's not a low quality issue.

1st: You had many areas you touched up differently, so there isn't a uniform layer.
2nd: Flat sheen, unprimed ceilings are notoriously porous.
This alone causes half of your problem.
3rd: The last "entire-surface" coat just compounded the previous 2 varying coats.

Remedy...
* Use Zinsser's Odorless Oil primer. This won't "pull"-off existing popcorn like latex primers can.
* Use a "slit-foam" roller-cover if popcorn ceiling. Rinse fuzz out b4 using.
* Apply the "fading" paint north to south, then east to west. Use long strokes.
* Alternatively, first coat N-S....second coat E-W.

This should work!
Faron
corin99
Original Author
17 years ago
Hi Faron,

Thanks for the response, but it wasn't a popcorn ceiling. Also, it was a previously painted ceiling plus I put a coat of primer on before repainting (The previous paint was a gloss finish).

I don't know..I've done a lot of painting in my life and haven't had trouble like this before.

Thanks though.

John
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Faron79
17 years ago
John...
Wow! I had a couple assumptions wrong there!! Sorry 'bout that! 99.7% of the time however, a Flat popcorn ceiling IS the issue...

Kudo's to you for priming the glossy ceiling though!
Wow (or should I say eeewww....), a glossy ceiling??!

I also read the 2nd paragraph wrong...I thought you started by touching up water-stain areas only. Hmmm, my glasses aren't THAT bad I don't think...

How is the color eveness after a day or two of drying?

Faron
ndmng
17 years ago
We just painted our ceilings (new orange peel) with Valspar ceiling paint w/the purple tint. Two coats and it still looks horrible. We have painted ceilings before and learned the hard way about laying it on thick, going one direction then the other.

I went and bought Ace ceiling paint w/the blue magic. Hopefully that works better.
nicollet
17 years ago
I used the Glidden pink stuff and had no problem doing a touch-up later. It does take a while to go all the way white - after the pink fades, it's still blotchy and ivory until fully dry. I had Sherwin Williams Prep-Rite primer underneath the first coat, then went back to fix a bump, put on some joint compound, primed over the area, and repainted.
etznab
17 years ago
Like Granville - I have also sprayed it with good results. Sorry you had such a problem.
gottrocks411
11 years ago
I used the simply magic to prime the joint compound down the wall when I painted with it. Now the paint I am using to paint my wall is changing color big time, where the simply magic was used. I used acrylic primer and it didn't seem to help. Do I have to use an oil base primer to get back to normal?
HU-766915430
2 months ago
In some areas it sets up too quickly and you think you've miss. Then you add more and it starts to sag. I was using a sprayer. The stuff has been around for years and it's a gimmick. Just buy normal flat white ceiling paint.
PRO
Scotts Painting & Staining Inc
2 months ago
Stick with proven brands like Sherwin Williams, and using a basic ceiling paint like CHB Interior Latex Flat Wall Paint will work wonders and provide the ablity to easily touch it up later.

If you are looking for an Omaha Painter please feel free to reach out:

Scott's Painting & Staining Inc.

Color Changing Ceiling Paint

ghh3rd

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Color Changing Ceiling Paint

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