DIY Network

Prepping Walls for Painting Learn how to prepare your walls for painting. From "Home Made Easy" episode DHME-112

Guest Allegra Bennett, editor of Renovating Woman magazine, explains how to prepare walls before starting your next painting project.

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	Allegra shares tips on preparing your walls for painting.
	Figure A
	Figure B

Prepping Walls for Painting

• The first thing you need to do when prepping a room for painting is to make sure you have everything needed to protect your furniture and flooring against splattering paint or accidents.

• A good idea is to remove furniture from the room altogether if possible.

• Remember to wear safety goggles and clothes that you don't mind getting paint on.

• Dust and clean the walls. For most surfaces, use a rag or a vacuum.

• If you are painting a bathroom or kitchen you should wash the walls with a soap and water solution of approximately three teaspoons of laundry detergent to one gallon of water.

• Scrape any cracked or flaking paint with a paint scraper. For other small imperfections on the wall such as plaster bumps, you can sand them away with sand paper. You can use muscle power with a piece of sandpaper stapled to a sand block or an electric sander.

• Materials you should have on hand when getting ready to paint are: primer, paint can opener, stir sticks, roller covers (close nap on a rolling cage, large nap without rolling cage), paint brushes (one for latex paint and one for oil based paint), paint tray, gloves, drop cloth and an extension pole for your roller.

• A quality primer will help to hide any small imperfections on your walls. Use a good water based primer on new drywall. Choose an oil based primer for walls that have heavy stains from water or smoke damage or if the wall has paneling.

• Before you start painting, you should protect wall sconces and wall trim with painters tape if you are not planning to paint them.

• Start in the corners of the wall and up near the ceiling "cutting in" the paint using an angle brush.

• Brush on the paint around trim and in the corners of walls where your brush can't reach with a small brush.

• Another great tip is to do a "W" pattern to paint walls (figure A). Start in the corner of a wall and roll on a 3' x 3' "W" and then fill it in without lifting the roller. Repeat until your section is finished. This helps hide your seams and does not show where the roller has been lifted and put back on the wall again.

• The best way to choose a color is to try it out first. You can never make a good decision based on looking at the color swatch in the store. Take it home and tape it to the wall to see how it works within the space and with your room's lighting. The swatches do not always reveal the actual color when it dries. You can take a spare piece of wood and test a few colors (figure B) of paint on the wood and bring the wood home and place against the wall.

GUESTS :

Allegra Bennett
Editor, Renovating Woman magazine

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Website: www.renovatingwoman.com