If you are looking to paint a room in your house, it is important to know how to professional do it. Chances are you have painted your room before, and chances are you have been left wondering why your wall does not look as professional done as what you see in other homes, because you have lines that are not straight, paint on the corner of windows and the edging just doesn’t look right. While you are probably doing most of the painting right, there are small steps you need to follow through with in order to get the fine, crisp details to look correct.
To start, you need to first remove all of the outlet covers and switch covers from the walls. You can always tell when someone didn’t do this, as there is paint overlapping the edges of the covers. This task doesn’t take very long and it is going to aid in the finished look of your room. Of course, even if you are anticipating changing the covers to a different color anyways, you still need to remove them. If you don’t, the new covers migt not go on evenly, leaving some of the previous wall cover exposed.
One of the biggest problems while painting is spilling the paint. As you remove your roller or brush from the paint can it is going to build up in the lip of the can. To prevent this you need to take a small nail and hammer several holes throughout the interior of the room. This way, the paint drips back into the can instead of building up along the edge.
Tape off the areas you want to keep paint from with painters tape. This is going to protect the wall from the paint all without damaging the wall itself. Painters tape is less heavy duty than masking tape and while it sticks to the wall, it is easy to remove, without leaving a residue.
Pour the paint into a roller container. This container allows you to roll on paint onto your roller and then roll off excess paint. You always want to remove excess before painting, because if you don’t, you are just going to end up dripping the paint on the floor or applying a heavy coat on the wall that just ends up dripping and leaving running spots. After you have rolled off the excess paint from the roller, apply the paint in a “W” motion. This is going to give you the best coverage and it also removes the paint build up lines along the side of the paint. Paint the majority of the wall with the roller but leave the trim and the corners for a brush.
Use your brush to paint the corners and around the trim. Make sure to rub off excess paint before applying it to the wall, otherwise you risk dripping it down crown molding and other areas of the room. You don’t want to use a roller in the corners because this is going to end up missing areas and the sides of the rollers might scrape the wall as well.
After you have finished the paint, you should be able to determine if you need a second coat or not, all before it dries. If you know you need to apply a second coat, give the paint several hours for it to dry. If the paint looks good and this is not necessary, remove the tape while the paint is still wet. If you wait for the paint to dry and there is some paint that rolls over onto the tape, there is a chance the paint might pull off with the tape. Because of this, you either need to wait several days for the paint to be completely dry, so it will not pull off, or do it when its still wet. Semi-damp paint is just going to damage your walls and force you to touch up areas.
As long as you follow a few specific steps, you shouldn’t have a problem with painting your walls and maintaining the perfect look every single time you paint. You might like your professional paint job so much it might inspire you to continue painting other rooms.
