Don’t do it. The girl at the paint counter at Home Depot tried to warn us, but we were undaunted. We had picked out a nifty maroon paint color called Vin Rouge to redo our bedroom in and went out last evening to get the paint. The girl, before she even mixed the paint up, explained that red based paints use an ink base for the color as opposed to clay based for the rest of the spectrum. She pointed to a board that was divided into 4 squares, one white , one a light pink, one a dark pink and another a light red. She explained that represented a white wall with one, then two and finally 3 coats of red paint. We want that color we told her and we will see her tomorrow if we needed another can. She also warned us not to panic when we opened the can because the paint would look kind of pink, but would dry dark.
After this morning’s one coat, it looks like we will need at least three coats. The first coat even when dry looks magenta except where there was some overlapping which looks more like the finished maroon. Good news is that it only took a half a gallon to do that first coat. We will be able to get by even if we need four coats on the can we bought yesterday (and the one we bought today.)
Now I know why you see red walls in rich peoples houses, they can afford to hire someone to do all this painting and all the paint they will need to do it. So take my advise if you decide to paint a room red, don’t do it, use wallpaper, one coat will do.