Interior Home Painting Tips

Painting the interior of your home is a relatively quick and inexpensive way to give it a fresh look. In many cases, it can even be done in a weekend if you put forth enough effort. While you don't need to be an expert to achieve a solid paint job, there are a few guidelines to follow to ensure that it looks good. Here are some interior home painting tips to make it as pain free as possible.

Prepare The Walls

Before you do anything else, you need to make sure that your walls are adequately prepared. This means getting rid of any old paint flakes, filling in cracks and holes with a filler and removing any other debris. Wiping the walls down with a heavy duty cleaner should be sufficient and leave them prepared for an application of paint. Afterward, you give your walls at least a few hours to dry. Also, make sure that the room has adequate ventilation because the fumes from a cleaner can cause respiratory complications.

Cover Certain Areas

The next thing to do is place tape around the perimeter of baseboards and anything else that you don't want to get paint on. You should also remove face plates from light switches. This will allow you to paint with greater ease and you can apply more liberal paint strokes.

Mix Paint Cans

Even if you use multiple cans of paint that are the same color, they can sometimes differ slightly. When this happens, it can hurt the overall aesthetic of a room and leave it looking off balance. To prevent this, it's smart to pour all your paint into a five gallon bucket and mix it together. Doing so will ensure that the entire surface area is cohesive and there is no disparity in color. 

Use A Roller

One of the easiest ways to get a smooth finish is to use a roller and go up and down the entire length of the wall. Make sure that the roller remains wet at all times so that it's at least half loaded with paint. This should give you a consistent look and will help you avoid paint ridges. 

Have A Rag  
 
Since painting can get messy at any given time, it's smart to keep a clean rag with you at all times. If a stray drop lands on the floor or anywhere else, you can quickly soak it up before it becomes a problem. Just make sure to moisten it with the appropriate type of solvent for the paint product you are using.  
 
Author Resource 
 
Interior painting is this writer's home improvement specialty. He personally recommends looking online for painting supplies and other tools like the Fein Multimaster 250q for below retail pricing.