DIY – Painting Tips

Each of these DIY painting tips is important if you want your project to come out looking like it was professionally done.

Do you ever wake up each morning starring at a patch on your ceiling that isn’t fully painted.  It could have been avoided if you used a higher quality roller.  Why?  Because the right roller will glide that paint on with ease instead of having to use more paint and more pressure.  We hope you take these DIY painting tips to heart so you don’t have that patch on your ceiling and go insane.

• Avoid painting in wet weather.

  If it is raining or humidity is high DO NOT paint.  I don’t care if Aunt Gladys is coming next weekend and you want to make a good impression.  Aunt Gladys NEEDS something to complain about.  If it’s not your walls, it will be the pillow in her bed that looked at her funny.  Painting when it’s raining will not allow your paint to dry.  In humid conditions it can cause condensation to form on new paint.  When the conditions change  it can lead to streaks, fading and poor adhesion.  Aunt Gladys isn’t worth it.

• Clean walls and the ceiling before painting.

  A layer of dirt, dust, oil, hair, cobwebs can cover your walls that you might not see.  Don’t let all your hard work go to waste by not prepping the area first.

• Repair any cracked, peeling, flaking surfaces

  Repair any holes or uneven surfaces on your wall before even thinking of painting.  Just like in life, you cannot just cover up your problems. They will always manifest it’s self. Confront those issues with some spackle and sand paper… we are back to talking about the walls.

• Cover floors and furniture before painting.

  Seems simple enough, but sometimes when the paint job is small we think “I’m invisible and not one drop of paint would leave the brush without my blessing”.  Wrong.  Cover everything you don’t want paint on or else you will regret destroying your floor and furniture.

• Remove outlet and light switch covers.

  Nothing says “unprofessional paint job” like painting over light switch covers. Please calm your OCD friend or family by removing them before painting.  You’ll save them some therapy sessions.

• Don’t skimp on primer, it makes a difference.

  There are a lot of options for primer but picking the right one for your job is one of the most important parts.  Ask yourself these questions to help narrow down your options:

  • Do I need oil or water based primer?
  • Do I need primer for interior or exterior use?
  • Do I need this to cover stains or odors?
  • Is my primer covering new drywall or spackle?
  • Is the area I’m painting moisture-prone?
  • Is my primer covering new interior bare wood?
  • Is my primer covering previously painted interior woodwork?
  • Is this a drastic paint color change?
  • Is this covering old exterior paint?
  • Is this covering exterior wood?
  • Is this exterior wood that stains?

Before you start wondering down the isle for hours lost and alone, ask someone at precision paint to help find the one that fits your needs.

• Invest in quality brushes and rollers.

  The texture you’re painting makes a huge decision on what brush or roller to use.  You don’t want drips, streaks, or too little paint. You don’t want to paint that wall more than you have to.  It is a huge time and money saver when you are working with the correct tools.

• Prepare the room with painters tape.

  It may be a tedious task but in the end it saves you time going back over all the mistakes you made, then going back fixing the mistake you made when fixing your mistake.  Don’t get caught in this vicious loop.  The results will look professional because you did your painting job in the professional way.

• Combine all the paint into one container and mix so the color stays consistent.

  Come in and tell us your project.  We can accurately estimate how much paint you need, then combine all the paint and mix it so the paint will not vary from paint can to paint can.

• Start at the top and work your way down.

  Gravity.  Plain and simple.  You might get drips down the wall and cleaning that up is easy by painting from the top to the bottom.  You smooth out those drips along the way your way down.

I hope this was helpful and a little bit fun to read about the most important DIY painting tips.