The Complete Interior & Exterior Paint Guide

Choosing the right paint is one of the most impactful decisions you can make for your home — and one of the most confusing. Walk into any paint store and you're immediately confronted with dozens of product lines, each claiming to be the best. As a professional painter working throughout Sussex County, Delaware, I've applied every major product line in real homes. This guide cuts through the marketing noise and gives you straight answers.

We cover both Sherwin-Williams and Benjamin Moore — interior walls, trim and cabinets, specialty products, ceilings, and exterior. You'll find sheen recommendations, an interactive LRV tool, flip cards with product specs, trim paint comparisons, and a full comparison table. Whether you're painting a bedroom yourself or hiring a contractor, this guide gives you the knowledge to make the right call.

Accent Wall Rules from a Professional Painter

The most common accent wall mistake is choosing the wrong wall. The accent wall should be the focal wall — the first wall you see when you enter the room, or the wall behind the main furniture piece (bed headboard, sofa, fireplace). Never paint a side wall as an accent; it creates visual imbalance.

For color selection, the accent color should relate to the room's existing palette — either a deeper version of the wall color, or a complementary hue from the color wheel. For sheen: matte makes the color feel richer and more sophisticated. I rarely recommend satin or higher on accent walls — the reflectivity can look garish in certain lighting conditions.

Most landlords and property managers reach for the cheapest paint on the shelf. It’s understandable — lower upfront cost feels like savings. But budget paint fades unevenly, doesn’t touch up cleanly, and forces you to repaint entire walls (or entire rooms) when you could have just touched up a drywall repair. When you factor in labor, that “cheap” paint job ends up costing two to three times more over a 5–10 year period.

Many builders and some contractors use Painter’s Edge or ProMar 400 on ceilings. Here’s why that’s a problem: wall paints, even flat ones, are not formulated to dry to the same consistent flat-white finish as a dedicated ceiling paint. When you come back a couple years later to repair a water stain or patch a drywall crack, you can’t just roll a section of ceiling with the same wall paint and expect it to match. The original paint has faded, and the new paint will be noticeably brighter.

Dedicated ceiling paints — like Sherwin-Williams Premium Ceiling Paint — are specifically engineered to dry to a consistent, uniform flat white that blends on touch-up far better than wall paint. The formula is thicker (less splatter), dries faster, and the ultra-flat finish hides roller marks and repairs.

The bottom line: Use ceiling paint on ceilings. Always. And write down what you used — because even ceiling paints vary between brands and product lines, and knowing what’s on your ceiling is the only way to guarantee a clean touch-up years later.

Rental properties get painted with cheap paint more often than any other type of property. Landlords and property management companies see the lower price per gallon and make the logical-seeming decision. But here’s what actually happens over a 5–10 year rental cycle:

Here’s something most people don’t know until it’s too late: the higher the sheen, the harder it is to touch up — regardless of the paint brand. This is a physics problem, not a product quality problem.

When you apply fresh paint to a small area on an aged wall, the new paint has a slightly different sheen level than the surrounding aged paint. On a flat finish, this difference is nearly invisible. On eggshell, it’s noticeable under certain light. On satin, it’s very visible. On semi-gloss, you almost always have to repaint the entire wall.

Sherwin-Williams
Sussex County Locations

Sherwin-Williams has 6 retail paint stores in Sussex County, plus a commercial contractor store in Georgetown. All retail locations carry the full professional lineup: Emerald, Duration, Emerald Urethane, SuperPaint, ProMar 200, and all specialty products.

Benjamin Moore
Authorized Dealers in Sussex County

Benjamin Moore does not sell through Home Depot or Lowe's. Every dealer below is an authorized independent retailer carrying the full BM product lineup — AURA, Regal Select, ben, ADVANCE, and specialty products. All verified via the official Benjamin Moore store locator.