Camouflaging Switch Plates: Pick & Mix Paint

Video Transcript

"In this clip we're going to be picking our paint colors. Let's spend a minute talking about paint and color selection. For this project I always recommend that you use simple craft store paint. Don't use paints with acetone in it, because it will eat your plastic. Just go to your local crafts store and look for your craft store paints. These are water based and easy to use. My suggestion is that if you have extra tile, regardless of whatever tile you're using, whether it be stone or, or ceramic tile, take some with you to the paint store. It's much easier to use their light to combine with the paint colors to see what you have. Because you will be very surprised at how different lighting makes your paints look different. And so if you're buying at the craft store, without your tile, you may bring it home and find that you have a totally different combination of colors. So their fluorescent light may not look like your kitchen light or your bathroom light. So we have your tiles and we're going to go to the craft store and we're going to pick up some paints. And remember these paints are probably a dollar a bottle, so be generous in your color selection. You're probably not going to find paints that are going to be exactly the same color as your tile, or your granite or your marble, or whatever back splashes you have. So figure on spending ten or twelve dollars, buy a good selection of your colors as I have here. I have, because we're using the tumbled stone here our colors are very muted, very natural colors, very normal colors. And so we're going to stick with the neutrals here. As you see I have blacks and whites and there some varieties of creams and browns because I probably will be mixing paints to get the correct colors. Don't also forget that your going to need some sort of base coat and most all of your paints either have a base, base coat available, or you can use a plain white. Because probably your switch plate covers are going to be white or off white. If they're off white to start with, pick, pick a matching color to your switch plate, so that you have an easy coverage on the cover when you start. I happen to have here a fairly new product; it's a paint for plastic. It's specifically designed for plastic. And this is what I'm going to be using for my base coat. It's white so it will match perfectly. Another suggestion is to keep your paints upside down. First off, it, it shows your colors when you're looking for a specific color, you can see them all here together. And it keeps your paints ready to use, so that there's not a, a stoppage of your, of your paint hole when you go to pour the paint out, it pours evenly and easily. Give it always a good shake, keep it fresh and then you're ready to use."