Painting a room or your entire home is the easiest and fastest way of updating your house. A new paint color speaks volumes on a property. Since 2010, paint sales have increased by the billions each year. If you are ready to take that step, we are here to help you with these steps on how to prep for painting.
Move Items Around
The first step in prepping for painting is to move items out or into the center of the room. Your goal is to keep furniture, decor and other items away from possible paint splashes. For smaller items, it will be in your best interest to store them in plastic containers or cardboard boxes for safekeeping. If you are painting your entire home, you can move everything out, but it is not necessarily. Instead, work room by room and move things around as you go. If this is the method you decide on, it will be a week’s long process of painting and moving.
Remove Items from the Wall
This next step is self-explanatory, but it is important to mention. You must remove all items off the walls you are painting. Things to remove include posters, mirrors, pictures, hanging decorations and any other items you have on the walls. Removing everything will make it easier to paint and lay evenly. For wall items, it is best to place them in a box, so it easier to keep them all together.
Unscrew Switch and Outlet Plates
While unscrewing switch and outlet plates are not necessary, it does help the painting process. All you need is a screwdriver to get them out. However, we do recommend you placing each switch, plate and screws into individual plastic labeled baggies, so you can easily reinstall them and not lose any pieces.
Repair and Clean Walls
To make painting easy, you will want a flat and even surface. This means you are going to want to patch up small holes, flake off chipped paint and remove wallpaper. You are going to use small tools and painters caulk to make sure these steps go swimmingly. A home repair contractor will have all these tools on hand and can quickly get it done.
Sweep
After cleaning the walls and moving items around, we guarantee that there will be a mess to clean up. That’s where sweeping and vacuuming come to play. Cleaning a room will help the paint stay on easier and gives you one less step to do after you move everything back in.
Tape and Add Plastic Tarp
Now that things are out of the way and the area is clean, it is time to add painter’s tape and plastic tarps. Use painter’s tape to make sure you don’t get paint on crown molding, outlets, ceilings and accent walls. Professional painters use plastic tarps to make sure that excess paint does not hit the floor and ruin your flooring. You can find both of these items online or at your local home improvement store.
Set Work Station
Organization is key to making any paint job go by smoothly. And the best way to achieve this is to have a work station. Your work station will have extra paint, brushes, cleaning supplies, buckets, tape, rollers and anything else you need to get the job done. If you are working on multiple rooms, try to have a centralized place that has tarps throughout. Paint on shoes can leave footprints.
Painting a room or your property does not have to be difficult as long as you follow our steps above. And if you are looking for a painting service that not only gets the job professionally and expertly done but works well with clients and uses the highest grade of Sherman Williams paint, then look no further than Valor Home Services.
