Painting your home walls is the quickest way to spruce up your home interiors. If you don’t have a plan in your mind and follow the guidelines aimlessly, it could turn out to be a disaster. Looking for wall painting ideas? Follow these 10 steps to painting your home walls like a pro.
1. Decide your approach
Start the painting project keeping in mind how you want your home to look by the end of it. It is a good idea to have an accent wall than painting all four walls of the rooms in a single colour. You could also paint the ceiling a different colour.
2. Pick your colour
Decide whether you want to go with warm, cool, neutral or saturated shades. Don’t forget to take into account your existing furniture and décor pieces while finalising the shades for your walls. Once you have decided, pick a few paints for walls and get samples. Paint the samples on the walls and check them at different times of the day to see how they appear in different lighting. Choose wall colour for your home accordingly.
3. Choose your tools and products
Depending on the condition of your walls, you will need to pick your paint products. A few must-haves in your painting kit are paint, paint rollers, paint brushes, paint roller extension pole, sandpaper, painter’s tape, paint tray, rags, cotton canvas drop cloth and putty knife. If the walls of your home have leakages, cracks or are damp, opt for effective waterproofing solutions before you start your painting project. Berger Paints India can help you find effective solutions for all your waterproofing woes.
4. Figure out how much paint you will need
Calculate the right amount of paint you will need to spare yourself several trips back to the store and waste paint. If you find it difficult to figure out how much paint will be required for your home painting task, you can try the handy paint calculator that is easily available online.
5. Prep the walls and room
You don’t want to damage your favourite sofa or that heirloom, do you? If you don’t have enough space, push everything to the centre of the room before painting the walls.
Don’t forget to cover the pieces with a drop cloth or lightweight plastic sheeting and do the same with the floor. Don’t skip the drop cloth or else the paint will splatter, ruining everything around it.
6. Mix your paint
While mixing paint, use a wooden paint stick to stir the paint. Re-stir the paint can often throughout the project. If you are using more than one gallon of paint, put them all in a large bucket to prevent slight variation in colour. Save yourself the headache by using a clean bucket. Also, don’t forget to save the paint cans to store any remaining paint for touch-ups in the future.
7. Choose your painting technique
Ensure that you have a strategy in place before you get started with the painting task. Starting with the ceilings is a good idea. Work from the top of the room down. Thinking of a bold accent colour? Decide what colour you will paint the light-coloured wall adjacent to it and paint that wall first. There is nothing to worry about even if you get the paint on what will be the accent wall of the room as you can easily cover it up with dark paint that you will use on your accent wall.
Tape off the edges after the lighter wall dries up so that the dark colour of the accent wall does not bleed onto the new paint. Don’t start with all the walls of the room at one go. Always tackle one wall at a time.
When using a roller to apply paint, use long strokes in a W pattern for ample coverage. This way you can avoid roller marks on the walls that tend to look shabby and unsightly. Once the wall is dry to the touch, you can apply the second coat.
For wall trims, remove the painter’s tape and wait for the walls to dry before applying tape to the walls. When starting to paint trims, go for the one closest to the ceiling, moving on to the door, the window frames and lastly, the baseboards.
8. Ventilation is important
Make sure your room is well-ventilated throughout the painting project by keeping the windows open and turning on the fans. Keeping the fan blowing throughout the painting helps speed up the process of drying. If it is a damp or rainy day, be mentally prepared to wait for the paint to dry up as it will take longer than usual.
9. Clean up
While cleaning your painting tools like brushes, remove all painter’s tape and gather drop clothes, making sure any spills or splatters are dry before you move them.
Cleaning oil-based paints can be quite a struggle. For oil-based paints, clean brushes with mineral spirits if you wish to save them for future use. For water-and-latex-based paints, use soap and water. To clean and reshape the bristles of the brushes, you can use a painter’s brush. If you want to reuse roller covers, use the curved edge of a 5-in-1 tool to remove the paint under running water.
10. Give some time
Lastly, the amount of time your painting project will take depends on several factors. The size of your room, the way you are painting and your skill level – all of this matters. For instance, using a dark shade on the walls and painting the ceiling and trim will take much longer than just doing the walls in a neutral shade. In fact, some spaces may take only a few hours while some may end up taking many days. Take into account the prep and clean up time as well.
Now that you are aware of the 10 steps to make your home painting go as smooth as possible, don’t delay! Happy Painting!
To avoid the hassle of home painting, contact the experts in home painting, Berger Express Painting for a faster, cleaner and better home painting experience.
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That’s a good idea to calculate how much paint you actually need before starting the painting process. My husband and I need a good portion of our home painted. We’ll have to hire painting contractors that will do a good job and use the proper painting process as you described it.