Benjamin Moore paint in Natick, MA, at a counter with a long history

Welcome to the paint counter on Main Street. For Benjamin Moore paint in Natick, MA, you can come straight in, pick up colour chips, talk through a room and leave with what you need. Debsan Design Center started out in 1947 selling wallpaper and paint from 32 Summer Street, then came to Main Street in 1967, so paint has been sold here for the store’s whole life. Today the counter shares the showroom with wallpaper, drapery and fabrics, window treatments and flooring, which makes it an easy place to choose a colour against everything else going into a room.

We stock Benjamin Moore’s interior and exterior paints and stains. Tell us what you are painting, what it is painted with now and how the room is used, and we will help you find a product and a finish that suit it.

Benjamin Moore is the paint brand we carry. If you are working from a colour name or number a designer or a friend gave you, bring it in and we can look it up.

Choosing a colour you will be happy with

A chip in the hand under shop lights is a starting point, not a decision. These steps save a lot of repainting.

Start from something you are keeping. A sofa, a rug, a wallpaper, a curtain fabric or even a painting gives you a fixed point. Pull the undertone from it. A grey that sits beside a warm oak floor needs a warmer undertone than one beside cool white tile.

Look at your room’s light. A north-facing room gets cool, even light all day, which can make blues and greys feel colder than the chip suggests. South-facing rooms are bright and warm and can wash out pale colours. East and west rooms change a lot over the day. Look at your sample morning and evening before you commit.

Test on the wall, not just the chip. Paint a large sample patch, or a sample board you can move, and look at it on more than one wall. Corners and the wall beside the window will read differently from the wall facing it.

Think about the next room. In a house where you can see from one room into another, colours need to sit well together through the doorway. Many people choose one trim colour for the whole floor and vary the walls.

Bring the other pieces in. Because our wallpaper and fabric books are in the same showroom, you can hold a paint chip against a wallpaper sample or a drapery fabric right there at the counter.

Sheen: picking the right finish for each surface

The sheen of a paint affects how it looks and how well it stands up to cleaning. The names vary a little between products, but the order is the same from flattest to shiniest.

• Flat and matte. Soft, low-reflection finishes that hide small flaws in a wall. Good for ceilings, living rooms, dining rooms and bedrooms.
• Eggshell. A gentle glow with more washability than flat. A common choice for living areas and hallways.
• Satin. More sheen and more durability. Often used in kitchens, bathrooms, children’s rooms and busy halls.
• Semi-gloss. Hard-wearing and easy to wipe. The usual choice for trim, doors and cabinets.
• High gloss. A lacquer-like finish for front doors, furniture and accents where you want shine. It shows every imperfection underneath, so preparation matters.

On older walls with patched plaster or a few dents, a lower sheen is kinder. On woodwork you touch every day, a higher sheen is easier to keep clean.

Painting Natick homes, from the Victorians to the capes

Natick’s housing raises different paint questions depending on where you live in town.

Victorians and two-families close to the common

The older houses near downtown Natick Center often have plaster walls, tall ceilings and a lot of original woodwork: deep window casings, wide baseboards, door frames and stair rails. Woodwork that has been painted many times over the years needs the right preparation and primer before a new coat, and older houses may have lead paint in their earliest layers, which affects how surfaces should be prepared. Ask us about primers for previously painted trim and about safe preparation before you start sanding.

Tall walls and high ceilings also change how colour reads. A colour that feels comfortable in a low room can look lighter on a tall wall because more light reaches it. Many owners of older houses use a slightly deeper colour than they first expected, with crisp trim to pick out the woodwork.

In two-family houses, shared halls and stairways take the most wear. A durable, washable finish there makes sense, with softer finishes inside each unit.

Post-war capes and ranches toward Lake Cochituate

Further out, toward Lake Cochituate, the post-war capes and ranches tend to have drywall rather than plaster, lower ceilings and more open layouts. In an open ranch, one wall colour carried through the living and dining areas keeps the space calm, and a contrasting colour can mark out a kitchen or a hall. In a cape, the upstairs rooms often have sloped ceilings and knee walls. Painting the slope the same colour as the walls makes a small bedroom feel larger; a lighter ceiling colour on the flat part keeps it bright.

These houses are often on their second or third round of interior paint, and many have older oil-based paint on trim. Painting over oil with water-based paint needs the right primer, so let us know what is on your trim now.

Coming in without an appointment

The paint counter is the part of the showroom people most often visit on the spur of the moment. You can stop in for chips on the way past, pick up samples another day, and come back when you are ready. There is no need to book a time for paint.

How a paint project usually runs with us

Paint does not involve installation in the way blinds or flooring do. Most of our customers paint themselves or work with their own painter, and the counter is where the planning happens.

1. Come in with your room. Photos, measurements of the walls and a sample of anything you are keeping make the conversation much more useful.
2. Choose your colours. We help you shortlist a few, then you test them at home on the wall.
3. Pick product and sheen. Interior or exterior, walls or trim, new drywall or old plaster: each changes which product and finish we suggest.
4. Work out quantities. Bring wall measurements and we can help you estimate what to buy for the coverage you need.
5. Prepare properly. Cleaning, filling, sanding and priming decide how the finished paint looks. Ask about primers for stains, glossy surfaces and bare wood.
6. Come back for touch-ups. Keep a note of the exact colour and sheen. It makes buying more for a touch-up, or for a room you paint later, simple.

If you are also changing window treatments or flooring as part of the project, a free in-home consultation lets us see the rooms. Our page on what happens during an in-home consultation explains what is involved.

Choosing a white

White is the colour people most often change their minds about. There are a great many Benjamin Moore whites, and the differences between them only show once they are on a wall next to something else.

Warm whites have a touch of yellow, red or beige. They feel soft and welcoming, sit well with wood floors and older woodwork, and stop a north-facing room from feeling chilly.

Cool whites lean slightly blue or grey. They look crisp beside marble, chrome and white tile, and suit bright south-facing rooms that need calming down.

Clean whites sit in between, with very little undertone. They are a safe choice for trim and ceilings throughout a house.

The easiest way to see the difference is to hold several white chips against a sheet of plain printer paper. Next to pure white, each one shows its undertone straight away. Then look at your shortlist against your floor, your countertops and any fabric in the room. A white that looks perfect beside a cool grey sofa can look dingy beside a warm cream rug.

Kitchens, bathrooms and cabinets

Rooms with steam, cooking and frequent cleaning need paint that can take it. In a bathroom, a finish with more sheen resists moisture better and wipes down more easily, and a working extractor fan does more for the paint than anything else. In a kitchen, the wall behind the stove and around the sink takes the most splashes, so a washable finish there is worth it even if the rest of the room is softer.

Painted kitchen cabinets are a popular way to refresh a kitchen without replacing it. They need careful cleaning to remove grease, a light sanding, a bonding primer and a hard-wearing enamel finish, applied in thin coats. Doors are usually best taken down and painted flat. Ask at the counter about the right products before you start, because cabinets are handled far more than walls and show a weak finish quickly.

Ceilings and small rooms

Ceilings are easy to forget, yet they are the largest unbroken surface in most rooms. A flat finish hides the small unevenness that light from a window picks out across a ceiling. Many people use a plain ceiling white throughout a house, but a ceiling tinted with a little of the wall colour softens the line where wall meets ceiling and can make a room feel taller. In a small room such as a powder room or a study, a deep colour on all the walls, and even the ceiling, can make the space feel cosy and deliberate rather than cramped. Ask to see a few deeper chips if you are tempted.

Exterior paint and stain

A painted exterior faces sun, rain, snow and freezing nights, and the side of the house that takes the afternoon sun usually wears fastest. Good results depend more on preparation than on anything else: scraping loose paint, washing, letting the surface dry, priming bare wood and painting in suitable weather.

Older houses near the common often have several trim colours picking out window frames, corner boards and porch details. Post-war capes and ranches tend toward simpler schemes with a body colour, a trim colour and an accent on the front door. In both cases, take colour chips outside and look at them against your roof, your stone or brick and the house next door before you decide. Colours look much lighter outdoors than they do on a chip indoors.

For decks and fences, the choice between a transparent, semi-transparent or solid stain depends on how much wood grain you want to see and on the condition of the wood. Bring a photo of the deck and we can talk through it.

Where paint fits with the other lines

Paint is often the last thing chosen in a room, and it is the easiest to get right when the other pieces are already in front of you.

• Wallpaper. Trim, ceilings and unpapered walls need colours that work with the paper. Our wallpaper books sit a few steps from the paint counter.
• Fabrics and drapery. Curtain and upholstery fabrics are a reliable source for wall colours. See our fabrics and custom drapery.
• Window treatments and blinds. Shades and blinds can match the wall, the trim or neither. See window treatments and custom blinds.
• Flooring. A floor’s tone, warm or cool, affects every wall colour above it. Our flooring and carpet page explains the categories we offer.
• Repairs. If tired blinds are part of the room you are repainting, ask about blind and shade repair.

For a fuller walk through colour across a room, read how to coordinate paint with wallpaper and window treatments.

Benjamin Moore paint for homes beyond Natick

Customers come to the counter from across the surrounding towns, and we have written separate pages for some of them, each about that town’s own housing:

• Benjamin Moore paint in Wellesley, MA
• Benjamin Moore paint in Newton, MA

We also help with paint projects in Framingham, Ashland, Sherborn, Dover, Brookline, Waltham and Lexington.

Visit the paint counter or get in touch

The quickest start is a stop at the paint counter in our Natick showroom to look at colours together. For questions first, or to plan a larger project that takes in window treatments, wallpaper or flooring, reach us through the contact page or tap the call button, and we will help with the next step.