Benj Moore Paint

Poison Paint

When I walk into my new house, I wear a large, cumbersome respirator with a high-efficiency air filter attached to it. There’s a strap that wraps around my neck and a headpiece that grips the crown of my head. If you were to picture Darth Vader without the helmet and just the facemask, you wouldn’t be far off.

I wear this contraption because my 100-year-old house is undergoing an elaborate procedure to remove or encapsulate lead paint. After buying it, we were dismayed (although not entirely shocked) to learn that the vast majority of the painted surfaces in our 2,700-square-foot home are slathered in aging lead paint. I’m pregnant, so I don’t really want to be trolling around the place huffing lead dust all day. Now each time I visit, I furtively unlock the front door, glance over my shoulder to make sure the neighbors aren’t watching, and suit up as quickly as possible.

Making the place lead-safe is just one component of my multi-pronged effort to create  an environment fit for raising an asthma-, cancer-, and cognitive impairment–free kid. Slightly neurotic-sounding, I know, but the truth is that run-of-the-mill building supplies contain myriad nasty chemicals that seep out of carpets, wallboard, and paint. Over the course of days, weeks, months, and even years, science is finding, exposure to these chemicals can create a range of health problems from asthma and hyperactivity disorders to liver and kidney damage, and even cancer.

Choose the wrong paint, for example, and your kid could end up spending 15 hours a day huffing benzene (a carcinogen) while she sleeps in her crib. Buy a crib made of compressed wood products and you can add formaldehyde (another carcinogen) to the list of what she’s breathing. Taken together, those two products leach into the air an assortment of other compounds that are collectively linked with higher rates of asthma. And of course there’s the lead (here’s where cognitive impairment comes in) in the old paint we’re trying to get rid of -- it covers our window frames and walls, and most every bit of painted molding to boot.

When you buy a house filled with lead-based paint, the most common solution is to seal it in with modern, lead-free paints -- but as I’ve already mentioned, many modern paints have their own toxic ingredients (which have led some public health experts to advise against putting a fresh coat of paint in a room where your baby will be sleeping). So in our case, it became a question of which flavor of poison pill should we swallow?

FREE Sample Benjamin Moore Arborcoat Paint (Pint)

Melissa, a mom of 2 boys in Arizona, understands the importance of watching a family budget. After leaving the business world, she dedicated herself to working at home and pursued her passion of helping people.

Melissa learned that by shopping deals, using coupons, and finding freebies, she was able to enjoy quality products without breaking the budget. A teacher by heart, Melissa is dedicated to sharing saving money tips, bargains, and her new adventure of organic living to help others live sensibly within their budget.

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