Painting the interior walls of a room is one of the easiest and most popular do it yourself projects in a home, as a fresh coat of paint can provide an affordable transformation to a room. Before getting started on painting in your home make sure to read our useful tips on how to paint your walls like a professional.
The essential supplies list for painting the walls
Ensuring that you possess everything required for the entire job is one of the most crucial aspects of a painting project. Here’s what you’ll need to paint the walls:
Prepping the walls/surface
- Drop cloths – A vital element to guarantee that you don’t splatter paint on your surfaces. Canvas or material drop cloths are preferred, although plastic ones can also work. However, they can be slippery and tear more readily.
- Sugar soap – The best paint job demands the cleanest surface. Washing the walls and ceiling with a sugar soap and water solution will eliminate any dust, dirt, grease, and stains.
- Masking tape/painter’s tape – Painter’s tape is utilized for masking off floor edges, trim, or windows to safeguard them from errant brush strokes. It needs to seal the surface and, if applied on paint, not pull the paint up when you remove it.
- Surface filler and spatula – If the wall has any dents, scratches, or divots, now is the opportune time to cover them. Patch up any holes with the filler and use the spatula to level it out with the wall.
- Sandpaper – Even out bumps and smoothen any rough surface.
Painting the walls
- Paint brushes – You need to ensure you have the appropriate brush for your paint type. Paint brushes with natural bristles are intended for oil-based paints, while synthetic bristles are intended for water-based paints (but can be used for anything).
- Rollers – The workhorse of the painting tools stable, rollers come in a variety of ‘naps’ or thicknesses. A flat, smooth roller is ideal for smooth walls, while textured walls will require a roller that is thicker and more plush.
- Roller extension poles and a ladder – Especially if you are painting a ceiling and don’t wish to strain your back, you might need both.
- Stirring stick
- Paint tray or bucket – Ensure you obtain a paint tray large enough for your roller size. To make life even more convenient, you can purchase plastic insets or cover the tray with aluminum foil or cling film so you don’t have to scrub the tray when cleaning up. If you’re using a brush, you might desire a small container to hold your paint. You can also use the paint tray for this. Utilizing the paint pot itself can contaminate the paint and expose it to air for an extended period.
- Plastic bags/cling film – If painting takes longer than you had anticipated, or if you have had your fill and want to call it a day, placing brushes and rollers in cling film or airtight plastic bags will keep the paint fresh and eliminate the need for additional clean-up steps halfway through the job.
- Rags – Accidents occur, and it’s always a prudent idea to be prepared for spills and splashes.
The paint itself
- Primer – If your walls are in good condition, or if they are a similar shade to the one you plan to use, you can likely omit this step. If you are undertaking a dramatic color change, priming will ensure better coverage with fewer coats of paint.
- Wall and ceiling paint
Let’s paint the walls – the step by step guide
Setp 1 – Ask for large scale paint swatches
Rather than purchasing sample size paint for swatching on your wall, request large-scale paint swatches as they facilitate visualizing what the paint would look like on the wall and can be easily moved around the room or removed from the walls, unlike the painted swatches.
Ensure to test out your paint swatches in the room so that you can observe what the colors appear like with natural light and in the evening with the lights on in the room. Frequently, artificial light will alter the appearance of the paint color by casting a more yellow or blue tone to the color of paint. Therefore, it is crucial to always test your paint swatch in the room before painting.
Setp 2 – Clear the room, protect the room and organise your kit
Before initiating anything, endeavor to move all the furniture out of the room. Remove everything from the walls. If this is not feasible, move everything to the middle of the room, lay drop cloths on the floor and on all the furniture within the room to protect them from the paint. To ensure drop cloths don’t shift, mask the edges to the floor with tape. Gather all your supplies at a makeshift workstation in the middle of the room. Being able to turn around and find everything you might need will render the entire process far more effortless.
Setp 3 – Remove doorknobs, power point and light switch covers, and light fixtures
The most effective way to safeguard your accessories such as sockets and switches from paint is to unscrew the covers. If you have a considerable number of doors or sockets in the room, keep them separate by placing them together with their screws in individual bags, and mark where they originated from on the front. If you can remove light fixtures, do so. If not, cover the light with a plastic bag.
Setp 4 – Prep the walls for paint
Before you commence painting, it is indispensable to prep your walls for painting. Fill in all holes in the wall by applying spackling paste with a utility knife or palate knife to the hole. Once the spackling paste has dried, employ fine grit sandpaper to sand the area until smooth and proceed to sand off all paint drops or bumps on the walls.
Wipe down the walls with a damp cloth to eliminate any of the dust from sanding to prevent the dust from adhering to the paint. If the walls have any grease on them, use a cleaner designed to remove grease on the walls as the paint may not adhere to greasy walls.
If you wish to paint over dark walls, ensure to apply a coat of primer before you start painting, as this will reduce the number of coats of paint you will need to apply later.
Put masking tape around your window frames, along the floor edge or skirting boards, around the door, and anywhere else where you desire a clean line and no mess.
Setp 5 – Line your paint tray
Line your paint tray with plastic tray liners, a piece of tin foil or a plastic bag so that you can effortlessly clean your paint tray when done by discarding the liner instead of spending time scrubbing off all the excess paint.
Setp 6 – Cut in walls and ceilings
Before you utilize the paint roller, use a paintbrush to paint around the baseboards, ceiling, wall corners, and windows to cover the areas that cannot be easily painted with a paint roller.
When painting near the ceiling, use an angled brush as they are narrower and will assist in preventing getting paint on the ceiling.
Setp 7 – Paint walls
Walls are best painted by rolling. Use a 5-10mm (medium) nap roller fitted to a frame. Add an extension handle so you can complete the full wall without a ladder. Load the roller evenly with paint by working it up and down the paint tray. Spread the paint evenly on the wall, starting a little away from a cut-in edge at a slight angle and working back to it. Paint about 1m² at a time. When the roller is almost out of paint, and while the paint on the wall is still wet, ‘lay off’ the paint by rolling from the ceiling down. Apply a little pressure to blend the paint and eliminate any local build-up that may run or leave ridges. Proceed directly to the next section, so the edges stay wet and don’t show lap lines. Finish one wall at a time.
When you use a roller, the trick is to roll the paint onto the wall not straight up and down but in overlapping Ws, using diagonals to ensure there are no roller marks on the walls and that you obtain the best coverage.
Setp 8 – Wrap it up
If you are taking prolonged breaks between painting coats, place all your paint brushes and foam rollers into the paint tray and place the paint tray into a plastic bag. Tie the plastic bag and it will prevent your paint from drying out for a day or two.
Setp 9 – Cleaning tools
With the painting completed, it’s time for clean-up. Use a 6 in 1 painter’s tool to scrape the paint from the roller back into a paint tin. Keep the painting for future touch-ups. Rinse the rollers and trays.
Use several changes of water to wash out your brush in a bucket. Don’t wash the paint down the sink. As you soaked the brush first, the paint should have stayed near the tip of the brush, making it straightforward to clean.