Plan Ahead with Your Painting Project

Painting a room or rooms can give a whole new look, or at the very least, it can give a fresher and cleaner look. If you are planning on a painting project, plan it all out. Do you want something fancy like two or more tones, or do you want a simple, one color, goal? If you want something a bit fancier, go to the library or to a hardware store and read the books and magazines that give helpful tips and that provide inspirational ideas. When you get that inspiration, make sure you read the “how-to” section very carefully so that you know about how long the entire project will take and how many tools you will need before you buy the paint. You don’t want to leave a heavily used room unavailable longer than you absolutely have to, especially if it is do to a case of your ideas being bigger than your resources.

Plan ahead and give yourself more than one day to complete the entire painting project. Remember that you have furniture to move away from the walls and to cover protectively from paint splatters. You will most likely be taping off certain sections like windows and trim. You’ll also have to have some drying time in between coats of paints and ventilation to keep the paint fumes at bay. Take off all light fixtures, outlets, etc. If you can, take off the doorknobs. If you can’t (or just don’t want to bother) cover them in plastic sandwich or freezer bags and tape those bags into place. As much as you try, there will still be splattered paint, so take the time to insure that those paint drippings do not get onto the hardware.

Measure the room or rooms you want to paint as best as you can and take those measurements with you into the store so that you know how much paint you will need to buy, again taking into consideration that you will most likely need more than one coat.

If your walls have holes or cracks, fix them before you paint. It is a fairly simple, but time consuming process. Ask the sales associates at the hardware store how to fill in the holes or cracks, or get a book on spackling.

Oil or water paint? Professional painters generally prefer oil paint, and water and latex-based paint tends to dry quicker. Of course that means that oil paint takes longer to clean up, but is considered more durable for high traffic areas. Oil based paint, however, is more difficult to clean and clean up after, whereas water-based paint is simple to clean up after. The choices might seem difficult to sort through, but consider where you will use the paint and what kind of drying time you prefer.

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