6 planning tips to paint your place perfectly


We often think of spring as the ideal time for major home cleaning – and it certainly is. But the return to warmer weather is also the perfect time to freshen up your interiors with a new coat of paint and more contemporary colors.

These 6 tips can help you get started and ensure your paint job is fun and rewarding:

  1. Protecting your belongings: Painting can be a messy business and even without major spills, little drops of paint can splash on the floor and furniture. Make sure to move all room’s furniture to the middle of the room and cover it with old sheets or plastic. You’ll also want to cover your floors with a drop cloth (plastic can be slippery). And, even if you’re only painting one room, to avoid leaving a trail of paint, lay down a drop cloth out of the room to the kitchen, bathroom or garage – wherever you may need to cleanup or move cans of paint later.
  2. Cleaning: All right, so spring painting is a little bit about spring cleaning. New paint needs a clean surface to form a strong bond so use a sponge, water and mild dishwashing soap to remove dust, dirt and greasy finger marks. Once you’ve sponged away the grime, remember to rinse away any soap residue with a clean sponge.
  3. Patching: You’ll want to patch up any holes left from nails, screws and cracks with fast-drying spackle and wait about 24 hours for it to dry. Then sand the area smooth.
  4. Outlets and hardware: Remove light switch and outlet cover plates and cover the remaining hardware with painter’s tape. To avoid losing them, tape the screws to the back of the plates. Protect door hardware with painter’s tape, too. And if you’re painting the ceiling, you’ll want to slide down the cover plate and wrap your light fixtures with plastic.
  5. Windows and doors: Cover the edge of your window and door frames, as well as your trim, with painter’s tape. Remember: remove the tape as soon as you’re finished painting so dry paint doesn’t peel off.
  6. Paint: One gallon of paint should cover about <400 square feet. If you're not sure how much you'll need, this paint calculator will help. If you’re painting the ceiling, start there, then work your way down to the walls and trim.

Want even more tips? Check out here and here for lots of helpful tips.

Got tips – or painting tragedies – of your own? Please share them now the Shop Talk blog community forum!

Did you know: To prime or not to prime

Think your walls have so many layers of paint, you don’t need to prime? The fact is primer evens out paint coverage and gives your walls a more uniform look.  (Source)

16 thoughts on “6 planning tips to paint your place perfectly

  1. Very good idea about priming even though walls already have a lot of paint on them.

  2. I found that using Press-n-Seal on knobs and other hardware while painting is so easy and very effective.

  3. Fresh coat of paint every spring makes every room looks better . Thanks for the tips.

  4. I work as a painter full time. So yes I do on occasion prime the surface where I will apply Paint OR to make it easier if it is possible I can Use a electrical Sander and heavy GRIT sand paper and remove layers of cheap poorly applied paint . There for when I paint over the clean surface, The Paint job looks much brighter looks like a bigger surface than before and a over all neater job .No paint on the floor all areas are tape off the job is done in under 4 hrs

  5. We have lived in our home for 10 yrs now. I finally got my husband to agree to put some color on 2 walls, a dark gray to match our east wall onto patio door opening. Besides our bedroom and spare bathroom all are still boring white.I’d like to paint living room area& kitchen. Any suggestions on living room? It’s part of the dark gray. I suggested a type of blue, negative for him. our floor is light beige tiles and transitions into like gray blue / dark gray tile in dining room & kitchen area. I’d like a color to pop in kitchen area. Please give me some advice !

  6. I would love to be repainting as the people in this picture are. Give me the chance and watandthe three ai ut pressure on my arm to get it done too. Penny

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