When painting your home or any interior location, it is going to be an adventure. Any number of things could go wrong, so you’ve got to be prepared. If you mess up, you will have to start all over again or live with the consequences. Hopefully these tips will make things a little easier for you. 1. Remove Hardware Instead of taping around hardware in the room or slowly painting around things, you may find it easier to just remove all hardware in the room. This means the light switches, door knobs or handles, hooks, etc. Make sure that you keep all screws and small pieces together so that you don’t lose anything. Buy some plastic baggies to keep your pieces together. 2. Prep Day Before you begin painting, there is a lot that needs to be done. Having a day set aside for prep work will make the job seem a little less intimidating. Your prep day should be a day for everything but painting. Get the walls prepped by smoothing out any imperfections, such as holes or cracks, and be sure that the walls are clean as well. Take the time to clear as much as possible from the room, or at the very least, get it covered. This would also be a good time to remove the hardware in the room. 3. Be Prepared Have all the necessary supplies for the job ahead of time. It is always a possibility that you will have to make an unexpected trip to the hardware store, but you don’t want to be constantly running back and forth. Before you begin the job, make a check list of all the supplies you know you will need and put those items in the room. If there is anything you have forgotten, make a list and go get it before you begin. 4. Ventilation Proper ventilation of the room you will be painting is important for more than just helping the paint dry. The chemicals in paint vary greatly, as do people’s reactions to them, that is why it is important to always keep the area properly ventilated. Try to plan your painting projects during the spring and fall when it is more comfortable to work with open windows. Have fans going while you are painting, and if available, use box window fans to assist in airing the room. Depending on the type of paint you are using, you may want to continue airing the room for two to three days after you paint. If you are painting in a home or area with children or people with breathing problems, be sure to keep them away from the room you are painting to avoid unwanted exposure to vapors that could irritate their condition. 5. Cover Properly Proper coverage of areas you aren’t going to paint is essential, since it is nearly impossible to paint without dripping or spilling a single drop. When covering the floor, you should use a canvas-like cloth. Canvas is your best option due to the fact that it isn’t slippery and it is fairly thick. If you don’t have canvas available, use something that you can count on to protect your floor. Whatever you choose to use should be of relative thickness or covered by plastic. The downfall to using plastic is that it can be quite slippery. Once you have covered your floor or furniture, you should tape the edges down to ensure that it will stay in place and the paint will be less likely to leak around the edges. 6. Clean Up Sometimes you just want to quit. Panting will make you hot, tired, and even a little grumpy, so it’s understandable if you don’t want take the time to clean your brushes every time you take a break or quit for the day. If you allow the paint to dry on your brush, you will have to buy a new one, so instead wrap the brushes in plastic wrap and place them in a plastic bag. If it is going to be a few days before you get back to the project, you can even place them in the freezer, just be sure to let the brushes thaw before you go to use them. You are going to have to clean your brushes off eventually, unless you plan on throwing them away when you have completed your project. To make cleaning a little easier, it is a good idea to coat your brushes in whatever solution you will be using to clean them off when you are done. Do this before you begin painting and it will make it more difficult for the paint to stick to the bush. 7. Combine Your Paint Even if you get your paint from the same store, the color in each bucket can vary. By getting a large five gallon bucket and combining all of your paints into one, it will allow you to keep a consistent color throughout the room. Once you have dumped all of your paints into the large bucket, it may be easier for you to use a roller screen instead of pans. A roller screen will go directly into the large paint bucket so that you can simply dunk the roller into the paint and roll it over the screen until it stops dripping. 8. Cutting In In order to get a smooth clean finish on your wall, you should start by cutting in. This is the process in which you go around the walls, in corners and along the trim and ceiling, with a brush before painting the entire wall. Basically, you are outlining the wall with a brush about two inches in because it is pretty difficult to get at it with a roller. Brushes and rollers will leave two noticeably different textures on your wall. This is why you should give yourself enough time to get the entire wall painted before the brushed paint dries. Going over the brushed area with a roller before it has completely dried will give it the same texture as rolled on paint. If you are worried that your cut-in areas will dry before you make it over them with a roller, then you should cut-in in smaller sections. Guest post from Adrian Wade. Adrian writes for InsuranceCompanies.org. Read more »


