DIY home painting projects are super exciting. But the excitement can quickly decide when you do not have ample time to finish the self-concluded deadline. If you are an amateur in DIY projects, then it’s best to learn from pros. There are so many basic tips you can learn from tutorials shared by experts. To avoid any rooky mistakes and to make the painting project exciting these tips will help you out.
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Strategies to Paint Your Home
At this point, you’re already curious how you’ll paint with the tools you have, whether it is already at your home or sourced previously from a shop such as Columbia hardware store.
If it’s all about spicing up the exterior with bright, vibrant colors or giving the interior a fresh, new paint job, the following techniques will transform your home. With that said, let’s dive in and know the proper ways to paint your home by yourself.
Plan First Before You Buy Supplies
Behind every successful painting project is a plan that made it a reality. Before you start buying items from the hardware store, you’d want to plan your approach. Know the colors that fit every room in your house. Think about the accents that you apply to every room or maybe see whether the ceiling needs a brand-new paint job too.
Choose Your Color Palette
Choosing the right colors for your rooms can be overwhelming at the beginning. However, a workaround to this issue is to know what characteristics the rooms have. Do you want to use warm colors for this room? Does the kitchen need complementary colors to liven up its atmosphere? Will you be using a predominantly neutral or a saturated set of colors?
Another workaround to choosing the right color palette is to base it on the furniture already in your home. Think of the colors that could go well with the colors of your furniture. You can also try getting some adhesive swatches if available. Purchasing these adhesive swatches will ensure that you won’t need a trip to the hardware store to test out colors.
These swatches are attachable to the wall. You can test the colors and see how they will look at different times of the day to determine if they’re a good fit or not. When you have already decided what colors to use, go to your nearest hardware store to look for the paint you’ll need.
Select the Tools You’ll Use
Each project that you’ll be working on is unique and doesn’t employ the same tools over and over again. Depending on the room and the paint you’ve chosen, the tools that you’ll use may vary. However, some tools are considered a staple for painting projects, and they’re the following:
- Paint & paint rollers (preferably with an extension pole)
- Paintbrushes
- Drop cloth
- Sandpaper
- Rags
- Putty knife
- Painter’s tapes
If you’re lacking any of these tools, you should make a trip to the hardware store to ensure smooth progress in the room painting project.
Get the Right Amount of Paint
Determine how much paint you will need for a room. Measure it by square feet, and you’ll soon get how much paint is needed to complete the paint project for the room. Usually, people would go for a gallon of paint for every 400 square feet as a base of measurement to know how much paint is required.
Prepare the Room for Painting
To ensure that the painting project will go smoothly, you would need to prepare the room beforehand. Temporarily move objects out of the room so that they won’t get damaged or have paint splattered on them. You don’t have to move everything out of the room, so for those items that are immovable, cover them with a drop cloth or a light plastic sheet.
You’d also want to cover the floor to prevent any excess splatters. Cover power outlets and switches with painter’s tape to ensure that no paint drops will enter them. By the time you’re done covering up and setting up the room, you should be ready for the next phase of the project.
Mix the Paint
With the use of a wooden paint stick, stir and mix the paint. You would need to stir the paint a lot as you progress in the painting project. Be aware that if you don’t stir the paint consistently, the ingredients present in the paint will separate. If the ingredients separate, the paint color and quality will be impacted negatively—you will not get the actual color you’re aiming for.
Start Painting
Now that your paint has been mixed and the brushes and rollers are ready, it’s time to paint the room. However, you would need to paint in a calculated way. Plan out which parts of the room are the top priority because these are the areas you’ll paint first. Preferably, you’d want to work from the top of the room downwards, with the ceilings being the first to be painted.
As for tackling walls, take them on one by one. Repeat coating the room until the paint looks consistent enough.
Let the Breeze Come In
Proper ventilation is required if you want the paint to dry up soon. Open windows and use fans. By facilitating warmth in the room and having a fan blowing in the air, the paint dries at a faster speed. However, if the day you are working on your painting project is damp and rainy, expect the paint to dry up slower.
Clean Up Before You Finish
Just because you’re done painting doesn’t mean it’s time to finally sit back and relax. You will still need to do some cleanup around the room. Gather up the tools you’ve purchased from the hardware store and store them in a safe area. Remove all the painter’s tape and sheets that cover the outlets, switches, and furniture. Remove any paint splatters with either soapy water or mineral spirits.
Once you’re done cleaning up, you can bring back all the items that you’ve temporarily moved out of the room.
Painting is Fun and Easy But Requires Planning
Painting is a fun activity to do whenever you’re renovating your home or giving a room new colors to be coated in. However, even though painting is fun and easy, it requires a lot of planning. You’ll need to draft out a plan on which needs painting first, get the tools from the hardware store, and set up the rooms for painting before proceeding.
However, in the end, the long process of painting is worth it. Your family will appreciate the new paint job. The new paint job also breathes a whole new life into the rooms of your home.
