Thanks to our friends Scott and Carlos, priming the drywall was like eating cake! And – because we got the priming done so quickly – I now can shift gears and start with the proper paint.

While looking for a suitable zero VOC paint product, I ran again into the issue of finding something that has a price point of $30/gallon or less and is not a special order.

After some back and forth, we settled on Behr Premium Plus Interior Eggshell Enamel. It meets our price point and zero VOC requirement, and is labeled low odor.

I found out that low odor does not mean odor free. Don’t get me wrong – it is not obnoxious. In fact, it is really nice to paint without being engulfed in the fumes of other conventional paints that still contain some level of volatile organic compounds (VOC’s). But, as I said, it is not odor free.

While I was in the store, waiting for the color to get mixed, I browsed through the various rollers that were on display. I picked up a rather pricy one to give it a try.

To my surprise, it lasted through the entire paint job, and it still in such good shape that I probably will use it on the second floor. Compare that to the cheap rollers I started with. They lasted for one day and had to go into the trash.

That got me thinking – about the trash we produce because we fall for a lot of cheap stuff. Plus, economically it made sense to get the expensive but good quality roller. By now it has paid for itself, outlasting God knows how many cheap rollers.

It is also a microcosm of what happens with green buildings and deep energy retrofits like ours. A lot of people shy away from the green or more energy efficient option because it appears so expensive when compared the the conventional (cheap) options.

But if green building technologies are executed wisely, they begin to pay for themselves – and may even begin to save some real money at the end.

Wow, I really had a lot to say about painting – didn’t I?