| Painting the walls
Painting a room in your home can be a fairly simple job with the right
tools, the right preparation, and a little patience.
The first thing you want to do is remove or cover all the furniture in
the room. If you can move it out, do it. It will be less of a hassle to
have to work around it. Otherwise, move all the furniture to the center
of the room (or as far away from the walls as possible), get some plastic
covers from your local hardware store, and cover the furniture. Be careful
with using old towels or blankets to cover the furniture. The paint will
most likely go right through it.
Make sure, also, that you cover the floors. Spending a few bucks on floor
covers is cheaper than trying to get paint off of carpet or hardwood floors.
The next thing to do is to prepare the walls for painting. Remove all
pictures, window shades, wallpaper, etc. Using light spackle, fill in
any holes that you will not be reusing once your painting is done. If
you removed wallpaper, make sure that all of the glue is off the walls,
too (you can buy wallpaper glue remover at the hardware store).
Once all holes are filled in and glue is removed, sand the walls to make
sure they are smooth and ready for painting. You should wear some sort
of eye protection when you do this since sanding creates a lot of dust.
Next, you want to put masking tape over anything that borders the walls.
You need to make sure all baseboards are covered the best that you can.
If there are any light fixtures, ceiling fans, windows, etc., make sure
they are also completely covered. You will also need to put tape on any
walls you don’t want painted. For example, if you are painting the
walls and don’t want to get that color of paint on the ceiling,
you will need to run the tape on the ceiling where the ceiling meets the
walls.
Finally, you’re ready to paint. You may want to use a primer to
start. Primer will help cover up any spots on the walls, and also get
rid of any odors from the walls, such as pet odor or smoke. Primer doesn’t
have to be a work of art since it will be covered up, but try to cover
the walls entirely. When you start to paint, paint the wall corners and
borders first. There are special brushes or sponges you can buy to paint
along corners or baseboards. If you don’t use those, just use a
regular brush. Once you’ve done that, paint the rest of the walls
with a roller. If the walls are very rough, you’ll want to use a
thick roller to spread the paint on thick. A medium roller is the most
common used. Once you’re done, let it dry completely, then decide
if another coat would make it look better (two coats usually does give
it a better finish. Anymore than that may be too thick). Do not open any
windows until the paint has completely dried. You don’t want flies
or mosquitoes sticking to your walls.
Finally, remove all covers and tape carefully. Make sure any paint you
got on the tape has dried so that you don’t get wet paint from the
tape on anything. Move you’re furniture carefully back into place,
hang up your pictures, and enjoy your new room.
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