Our freshly restored hardwood floors are all carefully covered up, because its time to start painting.

There are two components to this task: the straightforward and the not so straightforward parts.

Getting the paint on the wall is what I would call the straightforward part. Actually, we won’t start with paint. We’ll start by priming all the drywall.

The not so straightforward part has to do with the product choice. We are set on zero VOC primer and paint products. This is non-negotiable, as it has an direct impact on the indoor air quality (IAQ).

Back when we painted the garden unit, I sourced the primer and paint from the Chicago Green Depot, which has gone out of business since. With that, I lost a convenient and affordable source for zero VOC paint products.

“No problem, there must be other products and suppliers.” Yep! But few of them are conveniently accessible (i.e. brick and mortar business), and even fewer have zero VOC products at a reasonable price point.

I mean, if you look around and online, you can find coolest products under the sun out there. But we are not about to spend $60, $50 or even $40 per gallon for paint or primer. Our threshold is at $30/gallon, or preferably less.

That really begins to narrow it down!

For the primer we settled on Bulls Eye Zero Primer-Sealer by Zinsser. Even though it is water based, it has a really thick consistency – almost too thick. We diluted it to the maximum recommended ratio, and it still was thick, but we were able to get a few additional square feet of coverage out of it.

Thank you to our dear friends Scott and Carlos who master roller and brushes like few others do!