Painting interior walls is an easy and cost-effective way to refresh the look of a room. Interior painters at https://bunburypaintingservice.com.au/ often follow trends in color to give rooms a fresh, updated look. Interior paint should be durable, washable, and easy to touch up. It should also have a low or zero VOC (Volatile Organic Compounds) to avoid health and environmental concerns.
Preparation
Home interior painting can transform a space, creating the perfect backdrop for your furniture, decor and lifestyle. It’s also one of the best return-on-investment home improvement projects, boosting your property value and helping you sell your home faster.
A good paint job starts with a well-prepared surface. This is especially true for interior painting, where the smallest flaws can stand out and ruin the finished product. Fortunately, there are several simple steps you can take to prep your home for interior painting.
Begin by moving any large objects out of the way, and then remove smaller items like rugs, mats, curtains and wall hangings. If you can, it’s a good idea to clear everything out of the room completely, as this will prevent dust or drips from getting on them during the painting process. It’s also a good idea to cover up any light switches and outlets, as this will protect them from dust or paint.
During the prep process, your local CertaPro Painter will assess your home’s interior, including determining if any repairs are needed to ensure a high-quality finish and long-lasting paint job. This may include patching holes and cracks, replacing rotting or damaged wood trim, and removing old wallpaper. These repairs will help ensure a smooth, professional-quality paint job and will increase the longevity of your interior paint project.
It’s also important to choose the right type of paint for your home’s interior. There are many different types of interior paint, and each is designed for specific surfaces and finishes. For example, latex paint is easy to clean and dries quickly, while oil-based paint takes longer to dry but provides a stronger and more durable finish.
Walls
Walls are the canvas for your interior color scheme, so it’s important to prepare them properly. Professional painters always clear the area of furniture, use a drop cloth and clean walls with sugar soap or another mild solvent. This step helps prevent dust and grease from interfering with the smooth, even surface you want.
You may also need to sand rougher walls before painting. Using a fine-grit sandpaper will help remove any bumps or ridges that can cause uneven paint application. It’s important to lightly sand both sides of your trim, as well, in order to ensure that the edges blend in with the wall.
A great way to add texture to a wall is by stenciling. Whether you’re using an individual letter stencil for words or a complete word stencil, this technique gives your room a unique touch that will stand out against other wall colors. It’s best to choose a color lighter than your existing wall shade for this technique.
One of the most common mistakes that people make when painting a wall is not keeping a wet edge. A wet edge allows the cut and roll to dry together, resulting in an even, professional finish. It will also avoid “hatbanding,” “picture framing” and “flashing,” which are all caused when a painted edge dries before the rest of the wall, creating noticeable borders between areas of paint.
A lot has changed in 32,000 years since we first started slapping paint up on cave walls, but the fundamentals remain the same. Today’s interior paint is a sophisticated cocktail of pigments and resins that contribute to adhesion, gloss, durability, scrub and stain resistance, moisture and crack resistance and more. There are even paints that are low- or no-VOC, which reduce the amount of VOC gasses released into your home while you’re painting.
Ceilings
A paint job on a ceiling can make a room feel bigger, cozier or brighter, depending on the color you choose. If you want the best results, it’s essential to prepare the ceiling in the same way you would prepare walls: Masking with painter’s tape where walls meet the ceiling, and removing hardware like window locks and lifts, doorknobs and strikes, and light cover plates is critical to prevent paint drips from marring your carpet, floorboards or tiles. You can also protect furniture that can’t be moved with dust sheets or drop cloths, and use them as a barrier between your painting space and the rest of the house.
If your ceiling is textured, apply a coat of a high-build primer, such as Zinsser Peel Stop Triple Thick High-Build Binding Primer, before you start painting. It’ll help fill in any grooves or imperfections, ensuring a smooth finish for your topcoat. Allow it to dry completely before proceeding with your painting.
You’ll be better off using a roller for most ceilings, as it will give you a much more even coverage than a brush. With a 3/8-inch (for flat ceilings) or 1/2-inch nap roller, paint in small sections (3 to 4 square feet), keeping the area wet and feathering out the edge of the paint with every stroke to avoid lap marks.
For areas you’ll be covering with a second coat, apply a cut-line first. It’s a good idea to use a 4-inch brush fully loaded with white emulsion, which is cheaper than a colored emulsion and works well as a basecoat. Begin at the corner of the room and work towards a light fixture, or anywhere else that might show a seam.
Trim
Painting the trim in your home is an excellent way to update the look and feel of any room. Fresh paint can make your home more welcoming to guests and potential buyers, and it is also an easy way to increase the value of your property.
Properly prepping your trim is essential to ensure that the final result looks great. You should use wood filler on any rough areas of the surface and sand the filler down to a smooth, even finish. It’s important to remove any existing paint that is peeling and to clean the surface thoroughly with sugar soap or a TSP solution before priming and painting. You should also caulk any gaps or cracks in the trim before applying the new coat of paint.
Most pros recommend using oil-based paint for trim because it dries more slowly than water-based paint, which helps it level out better and leave fewer visible brush strokes. However, if you are a beginner or aren’t confident that you can achieve the same results as professionals, a high-quality water-based paint may be a good choice.
You should choose a semi-gloss or gloss finish for your trim because it will be easier to wipe down and will protect the surface from damage and wear over time. Flat finishes can also be easier to work with, but they won’t hold up to moisture well and may show scrubbing marks over time.
When it comes to painting your trim, you should start in a dry area and apply the paint with short, overlapping strokes. You should then let the paint dry and touch up any areas that need more coverage or aren’t as even as you would like.
Touch-Ups
When touching up paint, it’s important to keep in mind the texture of the wall surface. This helps to blend the touch-up into the rest of the wall. The touch-up should be performed using the same applicator as was used on the last coat of paint on that section of the wall — whether a brush or roller. A roller with a small nap thickness is preferred. When using a brush, it’s best to “feather” the edges of the touch-up in order to help minimize any noticeable edge line. This is done by lightly tipping the brush in multiple directions.
It’s also important to match the color of the touch-up to the original paint on the wall. However, it’s not always possible to achieve this because of factors like fading and sheen differences.
Touch-ups work well on flat or low sheen paint, but they can be difficult to blend into aged and faded satin, semi-gloss and gloss paint. One way to lessen the impact is to use a paint reducer on the touch-up in order to help it blend better.
If you find that a touch-up is not successful or if the paint on the wall is very damaged, it may be necessary to repaint from “break to break” which means painting from moldings and corners down to baseboards. This is more work, but it will result in a smooth and consistent appearance of the entire room.
Prior to doing a touch-up, it is important that the damaged area be thoroughly cleaned in order to get the best results. If dirt or grime is not removed, the touch-up will not adhere to the wall and can cause it to flake or blister. After the cleaned area is dry, it’s recommended to prime it in order to provide good adhesion and color blending.
