Whether you’re doing a paint job yourself or prepping the space for professionals, there are a number of things you should do to get the area ready to be painted. A good paint job has a lot to do with preparation, once the paint is applied there isn’t much you can do to change the results. Below is a list of five things you should do to prepare your home for interior painting.
1. Remove Furniture
The first step is to clear the area of furniture or, if it is impossible to move furniture out of the room, cover it with plastic in the middle of the room. Consider renting a storage unit for your furniture while the painting is being done, particularly if it’s a large job. You don’t want to ruin furniture with splattered paint or be uncomfortable bending over backwards to paint.
2. Protect Flooring
When the paint job is done, you don’t want to have to replace the wood flooring and carpet too as a result of splattered paint. To adequately protect your floors, use professional heavy canvas drop cloths or butyl-backed cloths throughout the room instead of newspaper or other paper. Plastic is a more affordable option too, but keep in mind that it tears easily and is subject to a lot of shifting while you work causing floor to become exposed.
While plastic is an affordable option, professional materials are by far the best and will keep your mind at ease about paint disasters. Professional drop cloths won’t soak through to flooring below and will stop paint from being tracked through your home in the event of a spill.
3. Remove Wall Hangings
Your walls will look rather ridiculous if you paint around your wall decor, imagine a painting moving slightly to the left exposing a different colour! For this reason, you will want to remove all of the decor on your wall before starting to paint. Besides, at some point you or someone else will want to replace the wall decor, it’s best to have everything the same colour.
Also, you don’t want to risk damaging the decor you have on the walls. It may seem like you’re saving time by painting around them but it is actually easier to paint a flat surface. If you think you’ll be shifting around wall decor once the wall is painted, fill in nail holes with spackle before the job is started.
4. Clean the Walls
It may seem odd that you’d clean a surface before covering it, however, clean, uniform surfaces will ensure that your paint job will look smooth. Dark smudges can show through a coat of paint and oil or other residue can alter the consistency of paint being applied.
Walls can be cleaned using a solution of water and soft detergent. If you come across a tough stain or smudge, use trisodium phosphate like professionals do. Once you’ve cleaned everything, be sure to leave a lot of time for the walls to dry before painting, fans can help speed up the process.
5. Tape
To avoid amateur mistakes of of smearing paint along baseboards, window sills and other areas you don’t want painted, use tape to cover the areas before you start. The best tape to use is green painters tape, as opposed to regular household tape, which is rather inexpensive.
Taping generally takes longer than you’d think, be sure to leave lots of time to prep the area. If you’re ambitious, you can even create designs on the wall using tape.
