So you’re thinking of painting your house.
Maybe you’ve been living in your house for a while and the paint on the walls is starting to look a little dreary.
Maybe you have a toddler who has been tearing through your house with a crayon, drawing on every surface they can get their hands on.
Or maybe you’re just the type who gets easily bored with your surroundings and you’re hoping for a refresh.
Whatever the reason, it’s time for a fresh new residential interior painting job.
What do you do?
For many, the answer is simple – just call a professional painter in Willow Grove.
But if you’re more of a DIY type, we’re still here to help.
Because we’re just like that.
Before you race out to grab a bucket of paint, let’s talk about what you need to have on hand before you get started.
1. A Drop Cloth
We can’t overstate this one enough – a drop cloth is one of the most important tools you can use as a painter.
Naturally, they’re there to protect things from paint drips.
In some cases, you can just move all your furniture into another room while you paint – but a drop cloth is still important.
Why?
Your floor.
Unless you’re planning on replacing your floor too, dripping paint can cause damage to your floors.
Drop cloths aren’t a sign of a poor painter either – everybody drips from time to time.
You can use an old bed sheet if you like, but be sure to layer it.
Professional drop cloths are thick enough that paint won’t bleed through, but bed sheets aren’t exactly designed for such uses.
You can use them with residential exterior paint jobs as well, especially where you need to do a lot of scraping like when you have cracking paint.
After all, it’s not a big deal if you drip paint on the lawn – that will be gone the next time it rains.
But flakes of scraped paint won’t disappear for quite some time.
2. A Ladder
Unless you happen to play for the 76ers, you probably can’t reach all the areas of the walls in your house.
And sure, you can use an extension pole while you’re rolling the walls, but that’s not going to help you when it comes to how to paint edges and corners.
For most houses, a standard six foot A-frame ladder will do you nicely.
However, if your ceilings are particularly high, you might want to consider a taller one.
Be sure to stick with a self supporting ladder, though.
Most interior walls aren’t designed to support the weight of a leaning ladder.
3. Spackle & A Spackling Blade
Spackle is a putty you can use to fill holes in your wall before you paint over it.
It’s useful generally for small wall repairs.
If you’d like to fill in nail holes, cracks, or other minor issues, spackle will do you just fine.
For slightly larger holes, you can use spackle combined with a mesh screen attached across the hole.
This gives your spackle a place to cling to when you’re applying it to the wall.
For much larger holes, however, you might need to use joint compound.
You apply the spackle using your spackling blade.
It’s a good idea to remove as much of the spackle as you can from the hole once you’ve filled it.
That way, you don’t need to waste an entire day sanding your spackle to get it flush with the wall.
No matter how handy you are with your spackling blade though, you’ll still need to sand it down, which is why you’ll need…
4. Sandpaper
You’ll need sandpaper to smooth out your spackle to give it a clean finish, but there’s more to it than that.
Other rough spots on your walls should be sanded as well.
This will give you a nice, smooth finish, making your walls look brand new.
The type of sandpaper you use depends on what you’re doing.
If you’re painting bare wood, use a coarseness of 80-120.
If you’re painting over plastic, ceramics, metal, stone, or melamine, 100-150 is a good grit.
In general, if you’re sanding over an existing coat of paint or between coats, a grit of 120-220 is a good idea.
Remember though that the higher the number, the finer the grit.
That means if you have a lot of imperfections on your wall, it’s a good idea to start with a coarser grit.
5. A Rag
No matter how good a painter you are, eventually you’re going to make a mistake.
You’re going to get a paint color on a spot where it doesn’t belong.
So what do you do?
Go back with the original color and paint over it?
Maybe.
But it’s much easier to just grab the wet rag out of your pocket and wipe it away.
Call PurcellPro Painting Today
Of course, these recommendations are beyond needing a paint brush and roller.
We’ll talk about that another day.
In the meantime, if you’d like a free quote on a residential or commercial painting job, we’re here to help.
Call PurcellPro Painting today.
