Tips To Help You Prepare And Paint Your Home's Interior To Look Professional
Painting the interior of your home can be a big job that you will want to complete properly so the finished product looks nice and lasts a long time. You don't want to do a poor job that needs to be repainted soon after. Here are some tips to help you paint your home's interior to look as if a professional residential painting service completed it.
Prepare Your Surfaces
Before you begin to apply any paint onto your walls, you will need to clean the wall surfaces to remove any dust build-up, dirt and oil from hands and heads, and cooking grease and food particles on your kitchen walls from cooking. Greases and oils can cause the new paint to not stick well and run from the walls. Painting over dust-covered walls will leave the dust stuck in the paint.
Remove any pictures and wall decor from your walls you plan to clean, placing the items in a safe place until you have finished the painting project. Also remove any light switch and outlet plates, and other hardware from the walls.
Use a damp towel or dust mop to wipe down walls that may be covered in dust. For greasy or oily walls, especially in your kitchen you will need to use a cleaning agent to remove them. Mix up a combination of trisodium phosphate (TSP) and water using the TSP's package directions to create a cleaning solution. Use a cleaning cloth or rag, or a sponge to wipe the walls clean.
Apply the Paint
Applying masking tape along the bottom edges next to the baseboards and to create a paint edge line on any accent walls can be time consuming and often unnecessary. If you don't fully adhere masking tape onto its surface, paint can often seep under your tape line, causing drips, runs, and a messy painted edge. And if you are applying masking tape onto a textured wall, it can be difficult to create a full seal over the wall's texture to prevent drips and paint leaks.
Instead, it is a good idea to buy an angled paint brush and apply the paint along the edge of the area you are painting using a steady hand and some patience. Applying the paint in a straight line with the angled paint brush will give you a clean line as you cut in on your painted surfaces.
Be sure to first paint a primer over any dark walls you will be repainting a new lighter colored paint. Primer will help bloc out the darker paint so when you apply the lighter-colored paint, it will block out the darker color, usually within two coats of paint.
Use these two tips to help you prepare and paint your home's interior.