Home DIY

Armstead Trade has always been pretty good for me, and it can be very cheap - 10L for 40£

I used to use Leyland trade for ceilings, these days I use a specialist ceiling paint fro a company called eico because it stops problems with roller marks.

It used to be the case that trade paint had a higher quantity of solids in so that it could either be thinned or would give better coverage applied neat, the idea was that trades would be able to handle the thicker paint where diy paint would be easy for amateurs to apply.

For hallways or walls that are likely to need cleaning often I use dulux diamond trade, it's noticeably more plastic and cleans well. If you want good coverage over darker colours or fresh plaster then dulux supermatt trade is good, it contains a lot of solids so it's expensive.

For a professional you have to balance the time it takes to do the job with cheaper materials against the cost of the best material for the job hence £75 a pot of paint is sometimes worthwhile.

Leyland Trade is £19.20 for the larger 12L tubs in the trade section at B&Q. All the "trade" stuff goes through the normal till - you just pay VAT on it. It's a good paint.