general interior painting - how to

Buy the best paint you can afford, it will pay off in the end, providing better coverage and overall lasting quality. You should plan for a gallon to cover a room with 2 coats. Primer is a good idea if you are doing a drastic color change or if the current paint is in bad condition or you have done any Spackle work.

Keep in mind how light effects color, it is a good idea to have colors on walls that will receive allot of light be darker, and inversely brighter colors on walls that will not see as much light. Also the overall brightness of a color effects our relative perception of how big a room is. Lighter colors open a room up making it seem bigger, darker colors pull in the walls of a room making it seem smaller.

Also remember that when matching colors often the hue will be changed depending on what color it is facing.

If a female has anything to do with the color selection make damn sure you have your input. If you leave it up to her it is a guarantee that you will end up painting at least one wall no less than three different colors, and it's usually the biggest one.

When you are planning your painting I would suggest doing it two rooms at a time, this way you can put down a coat, go to the other room and put down another coat. This way you can get rooms finished faster. I would also suggest doing the rooms you will use the most first, in our case I did the kitchen and living room. In retrospect I wish I had done the kitchen and bedroom first.

Tools

Buy more than you think you need to keep from having to go to home depot 3 times every day for 3 weeks straight. Tape and Rollers are things you should really stock up on cleaning rollers is a hassle and Tape is a necessity.

Tape
Razors
3 sizes of hand brushes
Small detail brushes
Mini Rollers
Large Roller
Roller Trays
Small Roller Trays
Tray Holders
Plastic Tarps
Brown Paper Rolls
Painters Tool
Brush Cleaner
Brush Comb

Prep

First vacuum the room, and baseboards. Follow that with a damp cloth, then use a cleaner like TSP. Lay plastic over anything vertical and roll out brown paper on the floors. It's better to not have to worry about drips. At this point lay a coat of primer or two if needed, taping off any areas you don't want primed.

Taping

Don't tape when you are going to paint a dark color against a light color corner, just lay down the coats of light and then tape off the corner and lay the dark color over it. This will give you almost perfect corners.

Right before you paint run the pad of your thumb down the entire tape edge to get a perfect seal. They sell a special no leak tape but even then if it isn't sealed it doesn't matter.

Tape low on the corner of ceilings it's easier to touch up paint, than it is to paint over a coat that bled onto the ceiling, if you don't bother to touch up your eye covers for the low taping by drawing the color into the corner anyways. If you end up painting on the ceiling it is very obvious.

When taping trim like floorboards and other accents; use the edge to lay the tape then just follow the line pressing down every foot or so. When you paint the trim do one heavy coat wait 15 minutes then remove the tape and wipe up any spill or bleeds. When the first coat dries give it another coat and touch up. Doing this will give you super crisp lines.

Painting

Do edges and corners with a combination of brush and mini roller, work about 4' at a time then go back and fill in the wall with the big roller. Use the big roller to combine the edges of the mini roller line so there is a solid fill.
Always load the roller heavy, do a vertical streak then use the excess paint to cover the area. When the roller starts to go dry load it up again and move on. Do not push hard or it will leave edges. These are easy to cover up after they are made but get more difficult to cover as the paint dries. Trying to cover them too late can ruin the finish of the paint.

Most paints will need 2 coats, I found that doing the edging heavy the first coat and then focusing on filling in with the next coat worked well.

Allow the paint 4 hours to dry between coats.

After the paint is dry remove the tape.

Use the small brushes to do touch up work where the edges bled or the tape pulled up paint. Get used to quickly wiping paint with your fingers when you over paint. When you are done always soak brushes as soon as you are done with them, clean them till they run clear under water.