lines on interior products in 2012. “The professional painting
market has improved over the past 12 months for all products
in general, and some projects began to break loose driven by
favorable construction interest rates,” said Mark Zielinski, vice
president of sales, Kelly-Moore. “We remain hopeful that the
market trends continue into the new year. As new residential
housing continues to rebound, even with lower volumes than in
2006, the interior product sales will continue to improve.”
Consumers as a whole are becoming more educated in their
purchasing decisions and are spending more time researching/
“Valspar offers a number of
tools to help, such as an online
virtual painter, paint calculator
and a full online color palette
calculator; premium products
such as Valspar Signature Paint
and primer in One with Hi-Def
Advanced Color and also as-
sures your purchase selection
with the Valspar Love Your
Color Guarantee where is a
customer does not love their
first color choice, Valspar will
replace it with up to two gal-
lons of another color.”
“In flats, the consumer
wants a paint that is washable
and stain resistant,” said Dave
Heiligenthal, Dunn-Edwards product manager. “In the non-
flats, consumers want paints that are scrubbable and block
resistant. The painting contractor is more concerned with the
product’s spread rate, hide, touch-up performance and ease-of-
use in flats. In the non-flats, contractors are looking for paints
that flow and level, adhere to difficult to paint surfaces and are
uniform in sheen.”
According to Karl Schmitt, vice president marketing research
and design at Sherwin-Williams, for interior coatings, custom-
ers are looking for quality of the overall finished appearance,
easy cleanup and maintenance, great coverage, soil and stain
resistance, ease of application, color accuracy and appeal, good
hiding, low odor and the ability to address environmental and
air quality concerns. “The latest technologies being developed
are those which do the best job of offering great performance
with low or zero VOC compounds,” he added. “Utilization of
alternate raw materials is one way Sherwin-Williams achieves
strong product performance at low or zero VOC levels.”
Kelly-Moore is beginning to produce all interior lines from
premium goods to production labels in zero-VOC formulas.
“The indoor air quality and near-odorless application seems
to lead the demand for new construction projects and repaint
work,” said Zielinski. “New formulas can achieve best in class
performance through formulation, which was not possible in
the past.”
Another important aspect of architectural coatings is stay-
ing ahead of the curve when it comes to color trends. Coatings
manufacturers devote a considerable amount of time and money
in predicting what will be the next hot color.
“Colors for 2012 will become fresher and cleaner, almost
pastel-like,” said Mary Lawlor, manager of color marketing,
unexpected delight to every corner of your home through a dis-
play of colors and design.”
According to Dunn-Edwards, color will be expanding in
four directions in the upcoming year for architectural coat-
ings. “Consumers can expect bold strokes of color and hap-
pier color going from the darker shades we’ve been seeing to
mid-tone ranges for 2013,” said Sara McLean, Dunn-Edwards’
color marketing manager. “For neutrals, we will be seeing more
tinted whites with spots of color to highlight these tints from
the Impressionist era. “We’ll also see color reminiscent of the
Industrial Age and postmodern aesthetic with strong pigmenta-
tion – machine coloring, lacquered brights and powdered pastels.
Thirdly, we see color pushing the limits of artistic boundaries as
we continue to explore the global reach of color and design.
“We’ll see these bold hues mixing together in fresh takes on
color combinations and we also see a hint of Old-World color-
ing with the upcoming Winter Olympics in Russia in 2014 and
the FIFA Cup in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2014. And lastly, we’ll
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