For any house painting job, you could decide to hire a professional house painter or you could take the DIY approach. Certain factors like, how big the painting project is, your time frame, and whether or not it is an interior or exterior house painting project, can affect your decision making process. Ultimately, the final decision can be different for everyone.
When it comes to house painting, each painter has certain set of rules that they abide to, in order to get the job done. This article successfully outlines useful tips that can be very helpful when painting a house.
- Start afresh by sanding away flaws.
For any painting project, it is better you start afresh by painting smooth surfaces around the house. By sanding, you are inevitably levelling out spackle or joint-compound patches and flattening ridges around nail holes. It also helps to remove burrs and rough spots in your trims. You can start by sanding the walls from the baseboard to the ceiling with a fine-grit sanding paper on a sanding pole, then, horizontally sand along the baseboard and ceiling. Also, remember not to put a lot of pressure on the sanding pole or the head can flip over and damage the wall. Use a sanding sponge to sand woodwork with crevices.
- Use the best materials for your house paint
Buying quality materials for your house painting projects guarantees success and satisfaction. Using underhanded materials may give your painted house a childish and unappealing appearance. The bristles may also fall out in these low quality brushes. Preferrably, you should use a decent 2-1/2-inch angled brush because it gives you more flexibility when painting and it is very versatile. It can be washed dried and then reused. Also, using quality paints can make the entire painting process much easier and faster, not to mention these paints last longer and they provide better coverage.
- Cover your furniture while painting
Covering your furniture while painting helps to protect it from paint drips and splatters. It will also protect the furniture from all the dust generated during the sanding process. An ideal cover material for your furniture is plastic sheets. Just wrap the sheets around the furniture and tape it at the bottom, and then proceed to sanding or painting without any cause for alarm. Note, it is better to move your furniture to the center of the room before you paint.
- Use a tinted primer
After filling the holes and patching the cracks on your wall with joint-compound, do not paint over it yet, otherwise the spot will look so much different than the rest of the wall. What you should do is, you should use a primer that is similar to the finishing paint to prime the walls before painting over them. Don’t use a plain primer (white primers) for the walls, instead, use a tinted primer because they do a better job of covering the existing paint color than the plain primer.
- Paint at your own pace
Don’t rush the painting process, even if it seems really easy to just paint all the corners in a room and then go back to rolling the walls at the same time. Try to get a seamless look of the room while you paint, and then carefully go from one room or wall to another. Also, try to cover your paint bucket, tray, or container with a dry towel or cotton cloth when switching between brushing and rolling to keep your paint and tools from drying out when they are not in use.
- Scrape your Windows
It is normal for paint to get on your windows while painting. Some people may think that taping the windows helps to protect it form paint drips but in reality, it doesn’t, because paint just ends up staining the windows anyway. So, just go ahead with the painting process and when you’re done, if you notice the paint on the windows, allow them to dry out and then scrape it off with a razor blade.
- Box your paint for consistent color
If you want to ensure consistency in your colors while you paint, then mixing your cans of paint in a five-gallon bucket or container usually helps. This is called boxing your paints. This ensures consistency in your paint from the start to the end of the house painting process. Boxing your paint removes any need to pour and mix paint in a roller tray, but sometimes moving the bucket or container with the boxed paints can be very difficult.
- Make use of two buckets while mixing paints
Using two buckets to mix paints is the most efficient way to ensure your paints are properly mixed. You need to constantly pour and mix the paint back and forth between two buckets until you have successfully scraped and mixed the solids at the bottom of the bucket. Use the boxing technique to mix paints in several different cans to ensure everything is uniform and consistent. If you do this right, mixing your paints not only ensures consistency but also make the painting job easier because you do not have to switch from one paint to another.
- Remove your switch plates before painting
There really isn’t much to say about this tip. It’s simple, instead of taping or cutting around your switch plates in your house, why don’t you just use a screwdriver and then take them off. It’s really easy and it provides you with a better coverage around the plate while painting, without making a mess on your walls.
- Use degreaser to clean dirty walls around the house
For dirty and greasy walls, like kitchen walls above a stove, mudrooms where your little ones remove their muddy boots and stain the walls, or the corners around light switches, use a degreaser to clean these surfaces. Note that when using this degreaser, use rubber gloves and goggles to protect yourself because it is very potent and dangerous to the skin.