Prism Paints are what we call our vast collection of over 1500 custom colors based on the offering of Sherwin Williams. If you have room in your budget you can really customize your kitchen, bathroom, or home office cabinets to your specific design palette. Use this offering to match existing colors in your home or create a statement that is uniquely you. In this video, Brian walks you through the differences between our standard “Colourtones” and our “Prism Paints” in terms of cost, lead times, quality, and other considerations. The customer photos featured in this video include SW6207 Retreat, SW6208 Pewter Green, SW6991 Black Magic, SW7075 Web Gray, SW7605 Gale Force, and SW7650 Ellie Gray. Let us know your favorite Prism color in the comments below!
Video Transcript
Hey everybody, Brian here from Cabinet Joint. I want to talk to you today about Prism paint colors from Conestoga. The word "prism" probably means nothing to you, but what it means to us is custom colors. So Conestoga's program has evolved over the last 15 to 20 years since they began doing all-finished cabinetry, and they've had between 14 and 16 standard paint colors ranging from whites to grays to some pastels and darker colors. But most folks like yourselves are probably looking for a way to differentiate your kitchen from your neighbors, and so people have been reaching more and more for custom colors. Conestoga has partnered with Sherwin-Williams, and Sherwin-Williams has one of the broadest color spectrums for paints in the industry. And Conestoga has taken about 1500 (this is constantly evolving so don't hold me to that number) of Sherwin-Williams colors and added them to a custom color collection called Prism. So Prism is Conestoga's name for their custom color collection. What that really means is Conestoga is going to order cabinet quality catalyzed conversion varnishes in standard paint colors you could get at a Sherwin-Williams store in latex or oil base. So it really opens up your design flexibility if you want to match the trim in your house or you want to complement your wall color that you did with Sherwin-Williams or Benjamin Moore or whatever. You have a whole lot more colors to pick from than just a standard 14 to 16 color tones that Conestoga offers. Now some things to be aware of with this program is primarily cost. It adds about (again, don't hold me to this, it depends on how many finished ends you have, what door style you have because your very expensive door style doesn't cost anymore to finish, so it can actually drive this percentage down), but I would say comfortably add 30 percent to your job cost. So a ten thousand dollar job goes to a thirteen thousand dollar job. It's a pretty substantial hit but it does give you that flexibility and customization. Now the other thing you have to consider is lead time. It does add a couple three weeks to your lead time. Again, talk to your cabinet coach, that number can evolve, but it's going to add almost double your lead time from a standard color because Conestoga does not stock these colors. They have to have Sherwin-Williams mix it to your taste, get a sample panel in, Conestoga may have never shot this Rockwood Shutter Green that I have in front of me here. They may have never shot that before so they have to shoot a master control panel, make sure the shop is trained on it, and then go ahead and shoot your job. Now they have to buy enough material that they know they can comfortably do your job and they're going to eat the waste. So you have to be mindful of that lead time and that cost delta. Now also I just mentioned waste, they cannot send you the extra paint that you may have left over from your job because it is a catalyzed conversion varnish which means you can't shoot this at home. This is not something you can dip in a brush and wipe it on. It's going to dry the second it hits the door because it is air and acid cured. It's not just air cured but a long dry time like a latex would. So they can't send you that extra, sorry to break that news to you. So anyway, some other things to be aware of on the quality side, a lot of the colors like the darker ones like this Rockwood Shutter Green I have in front of me here are shot hand spray. So Conestoga has this massive finishing operation with many, many, I want to say seven or eight robotic finishes finishing stations that when they run these things through it creates a very uniform paint quality and again it's robotic so there's no mistake of the guns moving too slow and we have drips or whatever. Many of these colors are shot by hand on a table offline because again they're not going to set that giant machine up for your one job, they're going to run all the whites and grays and the main colors through those robotic machines. So there is a little more of a quality thing to be aware of where because it's human, you know, all that kind of stuff, we do see a little more of the normal things you see with finishes maybe a little speck of dust or whatever with these colors than we do with Conestoga's standard 16 color tone. So be aware of that, make sure you order a sample door and you're comfortable with the quality. I keep referencing this color, we do a lot of darks, Iron Ore is a popular one. A lot of darks like this, dark greens, dark blues, these things show dust like crazy folks, I won't lie to you. You may look good on the paint card at the Sherwin-Williams dealership when you looked at it or on the sample door you ordered. You throw a color like this in a full kitchen and the dog walks through it and kicks up some dust within three days, you're going to have to wipe the cabinets down. So be very mindful, you need to be a clean freak with darker colors. It's not Conestoga's fault, it's not the paint colors fault, it's just the way dark colors are. We see a lot of these prisms going through in dark colors that look great, the concept they make great sense but they are a cleaning nightmare so be aware of that. If you opt for assembly, we do have a shop in Gettysburg where we do cabinet assembly now and we're doing a lot of it. If you want assembly and you're choosing a prism paint, we don't have the bandwidth. If there's damage, let's say a front frame comes damaged on a job or any number of things can happen, we cannot hold a job here for three or four weeks until the replacement comes. The replacements take a bit of time so we're going to ship that job to you and we'll have the replacement frame or door shipped to your job site and you can assemble that box and we will back out the assembly charge. We can't hold cabinets here for a month until replacements show up. So if you're one of the customers that chooses the assembly option be mindful of how that may affect your job and your timeline and that you still may end up having to build some cabinets. So anyway, it's a great way again to differentiate your kitchen. Your sales rep or cabinet coach as we call them will be happy to help you out. Your designer if you're doing Pro Design can talk to you about custom colors like this. We're doing a lot of them, I want to say out of all of our paint program we're probably doing 30 percent are custom colors now versus the standard off the shelf ones. So design away, have fun with it, thanks for watching.