Since beginning our house renovations about a year ago, we’ve been in and out of many, many hardware stores, True Value being one of our favorite stops. Our local True Value has the feel of an old-fashioned hardware store but with all of the modern conveniences. It’s one of those places where “everybody knows everybody”, but they’re happy to get to know new people, too. Pretty much anyone who walks in knows the owner by name, everything is where you’d expect it to be, and the staff enjoys getting to know you and hearing about the projects you’ve planned for the weekend. All in all, True Value makes us happy. So when we got an email from True Value asking if we would like to test drive their new EasyCare Platinum Paint & Primer. We said, “Yes, please!”.

After a little bit of going back and forth, we finally decided on a lovely dark gray color, Forbidden (09D7) in semi-gloss. Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Well, what are you going to paint?” Normally, you pick out what you are going to paint then you pick out the paint color. However, in this case, we did things kind of backwards. We knew we wanted painted side tables for the guest room, and we knew what color we wanted. It was just a matter of finding the right side tables. After a few weeks of searching, we finally lucked out and found these two side tables at Home Goods:

They aren’t as large as we had hoped for – though now that we are planning on sconces rather than table lamps on either side of the bed, we don’t need anything very large – but they’re tall compared to everything else we had been finding, and we like that. The price wasn’t too shabby either. They were originally $200 a piece, but were marked down to $72. Score!

Immediately after opening the can, Greg said, “Wow, that’s good stuff!”. Since buying the house, we’ve primed and painted every single inch of the ceilings, walls, and trim of this 2,115 square foot house. That’s a lot of paint! At this point, we feel like we know a good quality paint when we see one and this was definitely one of them.

There are a lot of cool things about True Value’s Easy Care Platinum Paint & Primer including a lifetime warranty, it’s low VOC, and stain/mildew resistant. What really appealed to us even before we opened the can was that it is paint and primer all in one.

Let me go off on a tiny tangent here and say that we’re not a huge fan of two-in-one products most of the time. Take shampoo & conditioner combinations for example… it does the job, but the results aren’t nearly as good as using a good shampoo and a good conditioner, separately. Well, that was not the case with this paint. We were truly amazed by the coverage. Here’s what the table looked like after only one coat…

Yep… ONE. Greg and I think that’s pretty impressive, especially putting a dark color on top of a light color. The coverage was so awesome that we probably could have stopped there but we decided to go ahead and apply a second coat just for good measure.

While we were having fun with our new paint, Bentley was off in the corner, not very happy with the fact that we were painting rather than playing fetch. This is his “Are you done yet?” face:

Back to the project… We let the paint dry for a good 48 hours before we put the side tables in place, and we also changed out the wooden drawer pulls for something a little more sparkly:

A few books, a clock radio, a small silver frame, a candle-holder-turned-vase, and a few hydrangeas later and we’re in business!

We are really pleased with the finish of the EasyCare Platinum Paint & Primer. We can already tell the surface will be very durable and have great washability. The rich gray color is absolutely yummy. I wonder if True Value would be interested in making nail polish… ; )

In the frame is one of my favorite photos from back in the day of me and my Grandma blowing bubbles. We plan on using some more old family photos around the room in the future and we thought this would be a great place to start.

With the help of our friends at True Value, these side tables have undergone a big transformation and we’ve added a new favorite product to our list in the process. It’s amazing how just a few coats of paint can totally transform a piece of furniture.

Now how about that nail polish? ; )