The Pittsburgh Paints Company
Ceilings, production interiors, and Break-Through! on laminate, vinyl and fiberglass that nothing else will stick to.
- Founded
- 1883 — Captain John Baptiste Ford and John Pitcairn Jr., who founded the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company in Creighton, Pennsylvania
- Headquarters
- Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania
- Ownership
- The Pittsburgh Paints Company, a portfolio company of American Industrial Partners since December 2, 2024. Privately held and private-equity owned. No longer part of PPG Industries.
- Price per gallon
- About $20–$75 a gallon
The story
Where Pittsburgh Paints came from, and who owns it now.
Start with the part almost nothing online has caught up to: PPG no longer owns its United States house-paint business. On October 17, 2024, PPG Industries agreed to sell its U.S. and Canada architectural coatings business to American Industrial Partners, a New York private equity firm, for $550 million. The sale completed on December 2, 2024. The divested business was renamed The Pittsburgh Paints Company, headquartered in Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania, with roughly 750 company-owned stores and about $1.88 billion in revenue.
The brands that went with it: GLIDDEN, OLYMPIC, PITTSBURGH PAINTS & STAINS, MANOR HALL, LIQUID NAILS, FLOOD, HOMAX, TRUEFINISH, MULCO, and in Canada DULUX and SICO. Brian Carson was named CEO in February 2025. In April 2025 the company launched its corporate rebrand: new logo, the tagline "Priming you for success," and a transition from PPG PAINTS to Pittsburgh Paints Co. The formulas did not change. The label did. In September 2025 the Canadian business separated again to become Canadian Industries Limited.
PPG Industries still exists and is still public – NYSE: PPG, around $15.8 billion in revenue in 2024, headquartered at One PPG Place in Pittsburgh. It kept industrial, automotive, aerospace, packaging and protective and marine coatings. It just does not make your house paint anymore. The cleanest independent confirmation is California’s own paperwork: the PaintCare registered-brands list dated September 1, 2026 lists Pittsburgh Paints & Stains, Glidden and Olympic, and does not list PPG. A brand that is not registered cannot legally be sold in California. The transition is finished here.
The older history is worth knowing. The company was founded in 1883 in Creighton, Pennsylvania as the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company, by Captain John Baptiste Ford and John Pitcairn Jr. It was a glass company – the first commercially successful plate glass factory in the United States. It entered paint in 1900 by acquiring the Patton Paint Company, renamed itself PPG Industries on December 19, 1968, and exited flat glass entirely in 2016, ending its founding business after 133 years.
Glidden has its own, older paint lineage. It was founded in Cleveland in 1875 by Francis Harrington Glidden, Levi Brackett and Thomas Bolles, originally making varnishes for furniture, pianos and carriages. Its ownership chain runs Glidden to SCM Corporation in 1967, to ICI in 1986, to AkzoNobel in 2008, to PPG on April 1, 2013 as part of a $1.05 billion purchase of AkzoNobel’s North American architectural business, and then to The Pittsburgh Paints Company in 2024.
Where it sits today: private-equity owned, with the broadest distribution of any paint family in the business – Home Depot, Lowe’s, Menards, Walmart, HD Supply, company stores and independent dealers – and the lowest price floor of anyone on this page. Two products the trade genuinely respects are in here: Break-Through!, which sticks to laminate, vinyl, fiberglass and aged gloss and blocks fast enough to rehang doors the same week, and Speedhide, the production interior that covers a huge share of American apartment walls.
Where it stands out
What Pittsburgh Paints does better than anybody else.
Break-Through!, a fast-drying waterborne enamel that sticks to laminate, vinyl, fiberglass and aged gloss and blocks in hours. There is no exact equivalent in the Sherwin or Behr ranges.
Speedhide, the production interior on an enormous share of American apartment and new-construction walls, and very hard to beat as a ceiling paint.
The widest distribution of any paint family: Home Depot, Lowe's, Menards, Walmart, HD Supply, about 750 company stores and an independent dealer network.
Manor Hall has real heritage and real quality at the top of the range, even if almost nobody in California asks for it by name.
Glidden is one of the oldest paint brands in America, founded in Cleveland in 1875 and still going.
The honest ledger
Pros and cons, set in the same size type.
The cons are not buried at the bottom in small print. If a brand has a known problem, you read it at the same size as the good news.
Pros
The cheapest range on this page. Glidden and Speedhide at $20 to $30 a gallon set a lower floor than anyone else offers.
Break-Through! solves problems nothing else solves, and it blocks fast enough to rehang doors the same week.
Speedhide is a legitimately good production paint for the money and the best value ceiling paint in the business.
Permanizer runs about $52 at Home Depot against $65 to $75 at the paint counter, which is a real arbitrage on an occasional exterior buy.
Commercial and industrial depth – Speedhide, Break-Through!, the TRU-INDUSTRIAL line launched in March 2026, and the new Protective Coatings range – makes it credible for property-management and commercial work, not just houses.
Cons
The brand is mid-transition and it shows. Cans, signage, spec sheets and third-party reviews are inconsistent between PPG, PPG Paints, Pittsburgh Paints & Stains and Pittsburgh Paints Co. Old architect specs still say PPG. Customers Google PPG and land on orphaned pages.
We could not verify a current published warranty document since the December 2024 sale, so we will not quote you terms for it.
Contractor-versus-retail line confusion is the worst of any brand here. Diamond and Timeless are Home Depot products, Manor Hall and Speedhide are counter products, Glidden is mass retail, Olympic is big box – all sharing one PPG#### color system across wildly different tiers.
Company-store density in San Diego and Orange County is nowhere near Sherwin-Williams or Dunn-Edwards. For a crew that needs a store within ten minutes of every job, that is the disqualifier.
Private-equity ownership adds uncertainty. AIP already spun the Canadian business out separately in September 2025, and store rationalization, further divestment or a resale are all plausible over a three to five year horizon.
Product lines
What to actually ask for at the counter.
- Flagship$55–$70
Manor Hall
The historic super-premium interior, bought at the paint counter. Kitchens and high-traffic rooms. Good product, almost no mindshare in California.
- Premium$50–$70
UltraLast
Flagship washable interior sold through Home Depot. Mudrooms, kid hallways, scrub zones.
- Premium$50–$60
Break-Through!
Fast-drying waterborne acrylic enamel for doors, trim, cabinets and awkward substrates – laminate, vinyl, fiberglass, aged gloss. A cult favorite for how fast it blocks.
- Premium$52–$75
Permanizer
Exterior flagship for siding and deep exterior colors. Around $52 at Home Depot against $65 to $75 at the counter, which is worth knowing.
- Value$23–$30
Speedhide
The contractor and commercial workhorse. Rentals, flips, spec houses, new construction, and the best value ceiling paint made.
Approximate list prices per gallon, before any contractor discount and before the PaintCare fee. They move with the sale cycle and from store to store.
Signature colors
The colors Pittsburgh Paints is known for.
- Delicate WhitePPG1001-1#F1F2EE
- GypsumPPG1006-1#EEEDE4
- Commercial WhitePPG1025-1#EDECE6
- Black MagicPPG1001-7#414040
- Secret SafariPPG1110-4#C6BB68
- Warm MahoganyPPG1060-7#6D4741
Screen colors are approximations. Monitors vary, and paint changes with light, sheen and the surface under it. Always confirm with a physical sample before you buy.
How it scores
Pittsburgh Paints across all 12 attributes.
The same score that appears in the comparison table, with the reasoning behind each one.
One-coat coverage
3/5One-coat coverage: 3 out of 5UltraLast and Manor Hall cover well. Glidden and Timeless do not.
Color depth
3/5Color depth: 3 out of 5The PPG#### system is large and competent but shared indiscriminately across premium and budget tiers.
Durability and scrubbing
3/5Durability and scrubbing: 3 out of 5Manor Hall and UltraLast are solid. The volume products, Glidden, Timeless and Speedhide, are priced to perform.
Easy to DIY
4/5Easy to DIY: 4 out of 5Glidden and Timeless are thin, easy and forgiving, and available at every big box.
Low-VOC options
3/5Low-VOC options: 3 out of 5Compliant everywhere it is sold, but there is no standout zero-VOC story and the old CARB resource's status after the divestiture is unclear.
Local availability
3/5Local availability: 3 out of 5Glidden and Olympic are in every big box, but the premium contractor lines have thin SoCal store coverage.
Contractor support
3/5Contractor support: 3 out of 5Speedhide, Break-Through! and real commercial and industrial depth are strengths, undercut by thin SoCal store presence.
Warranty
2/5Warranty: 2 out of 5Historically lifetime limited under PPG, but no current published warranty document has been verified since the December 2024 transition.
Touch-up
3/5Touch-up: 3 out of 5Low-solids products like Speedhide touch up easily. The premium lines are less documented.
Exteriors
3/5Exteriors: 3 out of 5Permanizer is good and notably well-priced at Home Depot, about $52 against $65 to $75 at the counter. Olympic covers stains.
Trim and cabinets
4/5Trim and cabinets: 4 out of 5Break-Through! is a real problem-solver: it sticks to laminate, vinyl, fiberglass and aged gloss, and it blocks fast. An undervalued product.
Ceilings
5/5Ceilings: 5 out of 5Speedhide interior flat at $23 to $30 is the national volume ceiling product for good reason. Hard to beat on value.
Warranty
What the paperwork actually covers.
Under PPG, the premium architectural lines carried lifetime limited warranties with the usual structure: replacement product only, labor excluded, non-transferable, void for bad prep or application. We could not verify a current published warranty document under The Pittsburgh Paints Company after the December 2024 sale, so we are not going to quote terms for it. If you want Pittsburgh Paints on your house and the warranty matters, we will get the current document from a rep in writing first.
Every lifetime warranty in this industry gives you a replacement gallon of paint. None of them pay for labor, and none of them transfer when you sell the house. We read all of them to check. A lifetime warranty that hands back a $60 gallon is not a meaningful remedy on a $12,000 exterior repaint – the workmanship warranty from your painter is the one that actually matters.
VOC and air quality
What the California air districts require.
Everything sold here is formulated to the applicable district rule, but there is no standout zero-VOC story and PPG’s old CARB compliance resource for architects and specifiers may not have survived the brand transition intact – we would verify it before citing it on a spec job. Orange County is under South Coast AQMD Rule 1113 and San Diego County under APCD Rule 67.0.1. Flats and nonflats are 50 g/L in both; industrial maintenance and rust-preventative are 100 g/L in Orange County against 250 g/L in San Diego, and interior stains are allowed 250 g/L in San Diego. Useful confirmation of the rename: California PaintCare lists Pittsburgh Paints & Stains, Glidden and Olympic as registered brands, and does not list PPG at all.
Juan says
“Break-Through is what I reach for when somebody wants their laminate cabinets painted and they want the doors back on by Friday.”
Sources
- PPG – completes sale of US and Canada architectural coatings to AIP
- American Industrial Partners – completes acquisition
- PCI – 2026 PCI 25, No. 7 The Pittsburgh Paints Company
- Pittsburgh Paints Co. – where to buy
- Pittsburgh Paints Co. – TRU-INDUSTRIAL line introduction
- California PaintCare registered brands (PDF)
Product names and logos are the property of their respective owners. Where the sources genuinely disagree, we say so in the text instead of picking the tidier version.