I fancy myself a decent painter (ahem, husband no one asked your opinion.) The paint gets on the wall, the kids and I have fun doing it and we save money. Here’s where I go wrong – maaayyybbeee sometimes a little bit of paint winds up on the carpet. Or on the ceiling where it’s not supposed to be. Or the paint is applied unevenly. But these are tiny details that can be overlooked (husband I told you this is MY blog, so I share it from MY point of view!)
Recently I spent a day with The Home Depot and several other bloggers and writers from home editorial teams to go over painting techniques. Three things helped me tremendously! I hope they help you because if one thing can change a room, it’s paint! Here’s a perfect example of our hallway before and after painting the walls and hand rails!
paint tip #1
Prep, prep and then prep some more! The ideal split between prepping and painting is 30 percent plan/prep and 70 percent painting. This is a big oopies for me. I spend 10% prepping and hurting on to the painting. The better you prep, the better the paint job will look. AND the easier it will be!
paint tip#2
Edge first, then spray or roll. Though I really fell madly in love with the sprayer over the roller. Invest in a paint sprayer if doing a large room. I hd never had any experience with one of these but I used one and loved it. It made the work so much easier, faster and cleaner. If you buy one (and I recommend you do) the people at The Home Depot can show you how to use it. The big tip I took away when spraying the paint is to overlap your strokes by about 50 percent to get the best coverage.
To get that professional painters job look, use a sprayer and then finish with the roller.
paint tip #3
Use the right painter’s tape. They aren’t all the same (who knew?) If you’re not careful and buy one that’s highly bonded to the wall it will stick like it wants to be part of the wall forever. With some painters tape, the longer it’s down, the harder it bonds and sticks to whatever it’s on. For inside, use more delicate tapes. Outside, you can go with a more aggressive, durable tape.
worried you didn’t do a good job?
Take a bright, high-intensity light (like an LED bulb) and hold it close to the drying paint. It will reveal any spots that you might need to go back over. Also, don’t worry about how it looks so much when the paint is immediately applied to the wall. Make sure it is even, but then wait and see how it dries to really understand if you need touch-ups or another coat.
Also, maybe buy an outfit like I’m wearing. It’ll save you in case you didn’t follow any of these directions. 🙂
Feeling all sorts of “grr I am woman hear me roar?” and want to install your own wood flooring? Check out this post!
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