Color 101: Handy Paint Guidelines for Walls

(The Last of a Six-Part Series)

The perfectly painted walls served as the beautiful backdrop for this Hooker Furniture Bedroom Woodcreek King Mansion Bed.

Painting your home’s walls is the most basic way to freshen up your entire place. This can be a tricky task, though, as it can just as easily turn into a nightmare. Here are some tips on how you can keep your sanity as you try to update the look of your home –

Practice and Be Patient

Interior house painting is a very popular DIY (do-it-yourself) activity. With this said, you can have this become a home activity or a project with your friends or office buddies. There isn’t a more affordable way to freshen up a home than to put on a new coat of paint together with your friends.

Painting is not difficult, in fact, you don’t need to have specialized training just to be able to do it. Any person who is able-bodied should be able to paint a room but you must have a bit of practice prior to the real project. Also, you need a lot of patience in order to finish the task.

Surface Prep

Successful paint jobs are successful because they began correctly. You need to properly prepare the surfaces that you are going to paint. This means you will have to sand, scrape, patch and then fill each hole that you could find.

Search also for dents, cracks and surface imperfections. This is not the fun part of your painting activity, in fact, it can be the most tedious part though it is a crucial part that you cannot ignore.

No amount of paint, no matter how pricey, will hide a cracked or pockmarked surface. Don’t think also that a thick coat will be able to hide imperfections – it won’t. It will only highlight the unprepared surfaces.

Primer Tinting

Priming the walls and ceilings is also mandatory when you need to paint over a wall with a darker color or a new drywall.

‘Wanna know why it is smart to first prime before you paint any wall surface?

Primer paint serves as a blocking stain from bleed through. It also allows a single-coat coverage for your main paint and, most importantly, it lets the paint adhere more, thus, peeling and blisters are greatly reduced.

A professional painter will tint right to the finished color. He does this by mixing topcoat paint to the primer. This will enhance the hiding capability of the top coat on the primed surface.

There are also paint nowadays that have primers. Nothing can cover as well as a dedicated primer, though.

Choose Canvas Over Plastic

Drop cloths are always plastic – you may have heard this a lot from your friends and relatives who finished their painting projects. While canvas is more expensive, it is better to have it because it is rip-resistant and highly durable.

Canvas also absorbs paint drips more than plastic cloths which can even contribute to accidents when the drips cause a slip.

Use an Extension Pole

Where needed, that is. Don’t risk using the stepladder, instead, invest in a telescoping extension pole. There are some that are even 18 feet long which can extend to 36 inches when fully extended.

Look for one that has that nonslip grip and metal core.

When You’re Done Painting

Once you’re done painting for the day, but would still need a few more surfaces the day after, be sure to roll off excess paint then wrap the brushes with food wrap. Double up so that you will seal off air completely.

This actually works in keeping the paint from drying off, thus, it would save you a lot of time from laborious cleaning of paint brushes.

The next day, remove the plastic wrap and you’re good to continue.

Tags: home painting, McCreerys, McCreerys Home Furnishings, painting, painting advice, painting guidelines, painting tips, wall painting

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 6th, 2017 at 3:55 pm and is filed under Color Schemes, Home Maintenance, Interior Design 101. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.