To many people, doing a paint job DIY is a major undertaking. Simply painting over surfaces won’t work if you don’t take the appropriate steps and precautions. For every discerning homeowner, you want a paint job that lasts. In this article, we will be sharing tips on how to pull off an excellent job painting a room like how professionals do it.
Tools You Need to Paint a Room
Before you start painting, make sure you have the following tools in hand:
Putty knife: A putty knife will help you apply spackle.
Primer: For covering irregular surfaces, such as wood trim, drywall, and any stain, such as old paint, when painting walls and the ceiling
Spackle: You will need spackle as a filler material for holes and cracks in the drywall
Paint: You may need more paint than you would initially assume. The target is to use up one gallon of paint for every 400 square footage of walls. The best choices for painting walls are latex paint. However, other choices depend on the surface you want to paint.
Roller Covers: Ideal thickness for roller covers is a 3/8-inch nap for ceilings and smooth walls.
Paint Rollers: A 9-inch paint roller is the best choice to roll paint over most surfaces.
Paint Brushes: A paint brush helps paint the room’s edges and specific trims. 1.5-inch to 2-inch paint brushes may cover all your needs for a room.
Painter’s Tape: These protect surfaces, such as window frames, electrical outlets, or other areas you won’t paint. In place of painter’s tape, you may use masking tape to cover the same surfaces.
Paint Tray: A paint tray helps load the roller.
Drop Cloths: For furniture and floors, you will need drop cloths to protect these from paint drips.
Surface Preparation for the Room
The most critical phase in a paint job is surface preparation work. The quality of the painting work depends on how well the prep work is. These tips on preparing a room for painting will ensure that you won’t have to use too much paint, or the paint quality will be as smooth as possible.
Remove Window Coverings, Outlet Covers, and Switch Plates
Before starting any painting activities, remove everything you can from the room. These items include appliances, all the furniture that can be moved, curtains, switch plates, outlet covers, vents, accent wall, and anything that might stand in the way during painting. Use a drop cloth to cover each furniture item or object that is too heavy to move.
Use Drop Cloths to Cover the Floor
Stretch canvas drop cloths over the floor to protect them from wet paint drips. Ensure you don’t leave folds over the drop cloth surface to prevent tripping.
Fill Out Nail Holes or Dents with Spackle Using a Putty Knife
Patch the walls before starting any painting work. Sift through the walls by running your hands to find any holes and rough spots. Mark these surfaces with a pencil. If there is any gunk or loose paint on these surfaces, scrape them off using the putty knife. Use the butt of the putty knife to dent the repair area. Apply spackle over the repair area and allow it to dry. Sand the repair area until smooth.
Cover Surfaces and Trim Next to Walls with Painter’s Tape
Painter’s tape is useful to prevent paint splatters and paint chips from affecting baseboards and the area where these meet the floor. When painting the ceiling, apply these along the trim where the ceiling meets the walls.
Tips for Painting The Room
Now that you have done the appropriate prep work, it is time to start painting. These tips are helpful in organizing your painting project, similar to how professional painters do them.
Use a Primer
To properly paint surfaces, a good coat of primer is essential to ensure a smooth finish. Apply primer as you would do with the paint using a paint roller. Run paint brushes with primer over trims and narrower surfaces.
“Boxing” The Paint to Achieve a Consistent Color
To ensure a uniform paint color over a large area, mix the contents of three to four one-gallon cans of paint into a five-gallon bucket and stir thoroughly. This practice of “boxing” solves the problem of possible variations in tints between cans of the same paint color.
Don’t Use Too Much Paint For Your Paint Brush
To prevent the paint brush from stiffening up, do not overload your paintbrush with paint. Instead, dip the paintbrush one or two inches into the paint and wipe off the excess paint before applying it over the appropriate surfaces.
Paint from Top to Bottom
To prevent paint from dripping over lower surfaces, start painting higher surfaces first, such as the ceiling, then work your way down to the walls, the baseboards, and windows, then the door trim. You can touch-up errors later with a paintbrush.
When Rolling Paint, Cut-in
Switch back and forth between rolling and cutting in to ensure coating over surfaces uniformly. First, cut in a few feet, roll over the area, and end it by cutting back in. Cutting in and rolling allow enough paint from the roller or the paint brush to bond before the previous fresh paint dries.
How to Use a Paint Roller Properly?
Using a paint roller might leave lap marks and ridges if you don’t use them correctly. Skim the roller cover first across the top of the paint in the paint tray. Drag some of the paint up the edges of the tray. Instead of taking the paint from the tray itself, start getting the paint from the top of the ramp, then roll down a few times to coat the roller entirely with fresh paint evenly.
The proper painting techniques for walls is by creating narrow w-patterns on the wall working your way from left to right. Ridges are not created by how much paint you use but by putting too much pressure when you apply paint.
Other helpful tips when using a roller are the following:
- Avoid lap marks by maintaining a wet edge when overlapping previous strokes.
- Remove the painter’s tape before the paint cures.
- Always keep a damp rag on hand to clean up errors by wiping off drips and dabs.
- You may need to use an extension pole to reach higher surfaces.
- Bring the loaded brush an inch or two from the edge when working down the seam, corner, or edges. Paint carefully with a few brush strokes when working down to the seam, corner, or edge.
- Always keep your equipment, paint rollers, and paint brushes clean.
Takeaways: Painting A Room Requires Thorough Work
Painting a room may take a few days to execute. Aside from the time it takes to pull off, you will need to invest in tools and materials which you might rarely use again. However, the effort can be worth it once you do the job perfectly. On the other hand, you can ensure saving time and effort by hiring experienced painting professionals to do the job for you. The investment in labor that you might have to shell out when asking professional house painters to do the job for you can save you more time, effort, and the possibility of errors, especially if it is your first time painting your room. For residents in Scottsdale, Az, Chandler480 provides residential painting services. We ensure to provide you with the best possible results. We also offer other home improvement services, such as furniture and cabinet painting, woodworking, feature wall installation, and custom paint jobs. To learn more about our services, get a free quote, ask us how to hire an interior house painter, or how to choose paint colors for your home interior, call us at 480-930-2360 or fill out our instant quote to get a free estimate.
