Understanding Proper Painting

How A Painter Might Get The Walls Prepped For Interior Painting

Interior painting can be a difficult job when you want professional results. If you don't have patience or experience, you may want to hire a painter rather than try to paint the interior of your home yourself. One reason is that prepping the walls takes work, especially if your walls and trims have holes or cracks that need to be repaired first. Here's a look at the wall preparation phase of interior painting.

Remove Curtains And Paintings

Everything has to come off the walls, including curtains. When that's done, all nails should be removed. Talk to your painter about whether you'll hang paintings back in the same places. If so, those nails might be left in place and painted around.

All other nails should be removed and the holes filled. Nail holes can be filled with spackle and the surface of the wall smoothed over. Before painting, the painter may sand the holes lightly to make sure paint will adhere well. In addition to filling holes from nails, the painter may need to use caulk to seal cracks and gaps in trim and baseboards so there are no ugly gaps once the room is painted.

Clean The Walls

Walls should be cleaned to get rid of surface dust. This might be done with a vacuum and attachment so dust doesn't float around the room. The painter cleans the window area, baseboards, and other areas where dust accumulates.

If necessary, they may wash the walls, but they'll need to make sure the walls are completely dry before painting. Once that's done, the painter may apply tape around windows and other parts of the wall they don't want to paint on, especially when painting the ceiling.

Apply Primer

Primer isn't always used when interior painting since paint often comes with primer mixed in. However, the painter might want to prime areas that were caulked or spackled to make sure the paint adheres well. They may also want to use a stain-covering primer to paint over stains so they won't bleed through the paint.

Paint The Walls

Interior painting involves using different kinds of paint. Ceiling paint is flat, wall paint might be satin or eggshell, and trim is usually glossy. They are different because the glossier the paint is, the easier it is to clean. However, less glossy paints hide imperfections better since they absorb light rather than reflect it. Your painter chooses the right paint for the area being painted at the time.

The painter may start with the ceiling first, then paint the walls, and then the trim. Since the work is indoors, the paint is applied with a brush or roller rather than spraying.


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