Painting your home can be the ultimate task to make that new strange space feel like home sweet home. But once you start the task of painting the interior of a house - from picking the colors, prepping the walls, painting and cleaning up afterwards - what are some useful things you can do to make sure your DIY paint job looks like it was completed by a professional?
Take a look at the 4 best insider tips and tricks that everyday commercial painters use to ensure they get the job done right, every time!
1.) PRESS TAPE TO AVOID BLEEDING
There’s nothing worse to finishing a paint job than letting it all dry and going to peel the tape off the walls only to see the paint bled through in unsealed locations. To help avoid this, use a putty knife, scraper, or something else to press the tape down and create a good seal so that paint doesn’t bleed through.
Another useful painting tip is to use the blue painter’s tip over masking tape. Masking tape can leave a sticky residue behind (especially if left in the heat), whereas blue painters tape can be left attached for days only to peel off nice and clean.
2.) SAND AWAY ROUGH SPOTS
When you’re painting your walls, it’s smart to start with a perfectly smooth surface by using a sandpaper to level out joint compound, spackle, or non-flattened ridges surround nail holes.
Not only does sanding level out the surface allowing for a more even coat of paint, it also removes rough spots in your trim or walls. But be careful about not applying too much pressure while sanding - you can actually end up doing more harm than good by damaging the wall.
3.) CANVAS DROP CLOTHS ARE A FLOOR SAVER
Instead of using plastic or old bed sheets, use canvas drop cloths to protect your floor from paint. The best part about this is, unless you’re painting your ceiling, you don’t need a cloth that’s so large that it covers the entire room’s floor. Simply get a piece that will extend over the length of the area you’re painting.
Also, where paint that falls on plastic can take forever to dry - often getting stuck to the bottom of your shoe and getting tracked throughout the house - paint that falls on cloth tends to dry rather quickly. Add to this the fact that paint that falls on cloth can’t splatter, and there’s really no reason to use plastic painters sheets.
4.) TINTED PRIMER WORKS WONDERS
To avoid the problem of flashing (spots in the wall where the paint is flat and dull like), professionals prefer using tinted primer over that of plain white. The reason being is that tinted primer does a much better job at covering existing paint colors and actually require less coats that if you were to use regular primer.
This is exceptionally true for bright colors like orange, red or yellow since they can sometimes require up to three coats to look their best without a primer.
What are some tips and tricks you use to make sure your house looks like it was painted by a commercial painter? Contact us to get a free estimate on your house today!
