I recently painted my room using Dunn Edwards line of low odor, zero VOC paint called Eco Shield. To my surprise, the price of a gallon was actually a few cents lower than the regular paint. ($30 vs $31 per gallon). It's usually the same story for me and painting. I only paint about once a year so in the beginning, I have to relearn some fun things. 1) if you roll the roller too fast, paint sprays in your face and that's not fun. 2) when you push hard on the roller to the wall, paint can and will drip out the side 3) it's no fun getting paint on the ceiling because every time you do it requires getting down off the ladder, getting a wet cloth, getting back on the ladder (which in my case was a really old wooden one about to fall apart), and scrubbing vigorously until the paint comes off. One thing I did remember is that I stained my last carpet with paint because I didn't cover the carpet good enough so this time I prepped extra thouroughly. Thank god because about half way in I was doing the ceiling and sure enough, my tray tipped off the ladder and splat, a big pool of paint spilled on the plastic.Painting alone gives you lots of time to think. My day was interspersed with moments of zenn where I practiced syncing my rolls with breathing to frustrated moments of spillage and wipeage to moments of literally having no thoughts at all to moments of fear that I wouldn't finish in time. At the end of the day all the breathing and wiping and spilling on myself made realize how important it was for me to be using the no VOC paint. I'm not sure about skin absorption but the fact that I wasn't breathing in harmful chemicals all day gave a good peace of mind. Now that I've used it, I'll never go back.
