Dollar Store Painting Supplies, The High Cost of Cheap
The dollar store seems like a brief respite for any amateur painter. The supplies are cheap and plentiful, and it can all be bought in one go without too much hassle. And after spending a lot of money on the actual paint, getting paint supplies at the dollar store seems like a no-brainer for people who want to repaint on a budget. But the problem is that these cheap paint supplies can actually end up hurting your wallet, your project, and take your more time for sub-par results. So before you head into a dollar store for your paint supplies, consider why that may not be the best idea with these three simple reason.
Low-Cost vs High-Cost Painting Supplies
Yes, some painting supplies may seem to be expensive, but under scrutiny what’s ends up costing you the most in the long-run are the problems associated with low-quality equipment.
Low-cost brushes and paint rollers are notoriously short-lived, wearing out sometimes after half a day and need regular replacing. Additionally, in many cases the filaments are falling out of the brush on first use which leads to them becoming stuck on your walls and paint. So even if you swap out to higher quality brushes later you still might have to fish out the filaments that found their way into the paint.
High-quality painting supplies, especially when it comes to applicators, may cost more upfront, but they are easier to clean and will last you for multiple painting projects. In fact, some paint brushes will last for years if you clean them after use and put them somewhere safe. So if you ever plan on painting again, or prefer to reuse supplies instead of continually replacing cheap ones, you’ll need to shop at somewhere with better paint supplies than the dollar store. Your local Benjamin Moore paint store is a good start.
Quality of Finish
Besides being cheap and breaking down easily, low quality painting supplies also ruin your hard work and leave your new painting project looking amateur and poorly done.
Filaments from paint brushes and fabric from rollers, both of which have been hastily assembled using sub-standard materials, will give way and stick to your walls leaving you with unattractive results. And none of that will be your fault, because as much as we like to say a “poor craftsman blames his tools,” you can only do so good with poor tools.
The best painting jobs come from a combination of skill and quality supplies, so you can get a high-quality look without necessarily having to hire professionals.
Productivity aka Time to Complete the Job
Yes, cheap supplies will end up costing you more money and leave you with a poor look, but that doesn’t even consider your own labour.
Constantly wrestling with substandard painting supplies is difficult, time-consuming, and frustrating. It makes what can be a relatively fun and quick paint project a long process of many different kinds of frustration. One can expect to encounter rollers leaving fluff on your walls, holes in your drop clothes or tarps due to lack of durable materials, highly-flexible plastic handles, and all around poor supplies resulting in small problems that add up to your time being wasted. And your time is valuable, so why not spend the extra little bit of money and save yourself the annoyances?
The dollar store, on the surface, may seem to be the ideal place to get your paint supplies. They’re cheap and ready to go, helping you cut costs relatively easily, also they weigh considerably less because they’re usually constructed from as little material as possible. But the problem is that quality painting supplies are important, and low quality painting supplies will end up costing you in the long run. So instead of trying to save money at the register, invest in some quality paint supplies and get the job done faster and more effectively.