Painting your interior walls is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to refresh the looks of your home, so if your home can also do with a little facelift, here are our top interior house painting tips to make your paint project a huge success.
Prepare the Room and the Surface to Be Painted
Remove the furniture and the carpets from the room you will be painting, then cover the floor with foil to protect it from staining. Remove the covers of the light switches and of the electrical outlets, too – it is an easy, but very important operation that will allow you do a better job.
When the room is prepped, you can start preparing the walls. Paint cannot be applied evenly on flaking, peeling, cracked and dusty walls, so the first thing you need to do before you start painting is to prep the surfaces that you will work on. Remove the old paint with the help of some sand paper or a scraper, wash the walls with water and soap, then give them a thorough rinse with clean water. Remove all greasy spots, too – new paint does not stick properly to greasy surfaces either. If there are holes or cracks in the wall, even them out with some caulk, then smoothen the caulked surface with sand paper as well. Allow your walls at least one day to dry properly after the cleaning and move on to the actual painting phase only when the walls are completely free from moisture.
Choosing the Paint
You can either choose a ready-made paint and primer mix or you can buy the stain and the primer separately. Ready-mixed varieties work better on clean and smooth walls, but if the wall has some problem areas, a separate primer will make a better solution.
When you have made up your mind about the type of paint to use, it is time to choose the color. Buy a very small quantity of the color that you like and paint a small area on the wall with it to see whether the hue looks just as good on the wall as it does in the catalog. When you have the perfect color, calculate how much you will need, buy it all and mix it all to keep the color consistent.
Choosing the Tools and Getting the Job Done
For good results you need not only good paint, but good tools as well. Buy a high-quality roller – choose one that is sufficiently wide and comes with an extension pole to avoid having to climb high on your ladder or straining your back. Grab a few brushes as well – you will need them to apply the paint in areas that are too small for the roller. Do like the professionals do, a good Colorado construction company always spends money on the tools they use for this exact reason.
When you paint, move the roller from the ceiling downward – that way you can get rid of any drips as you move the roller toward the floor. When you are done painting the room, wait for another 1-2 days for the paint to dry before you move the furniture back.
With these interior house painting tips, you will surely get the best results – just choose your color right, the rest is easy.