Interior House Painting Preparation

Like the old saying, "a stitch in time saves nine", when you prepare before painting, you truly wind up with better results. A successful painting job means preparing to paint beforehand. While you may be eager to get started, it is generally wise to take the time to think things through. Preparation is important whether you are doing the painting or if you are having professional painters coming.

Preparation may seem a little boring, but it is truly worth its weight in gold. When you prepare to paint, you get everything ready ahead of time instead of rushing in to get the job done. Many are eager to get rooms painted quickly and are too focused on the end result. What they don't realize is that 90% of the end result is affected by taking the time now to take care of the necessary steps in order to prepare for a successful painting job.

Begin by moving any furniture away from the walls. You certainly can't paint with your bedroom dresser and bed against the walls. Move them away from the walls and cover them with thick plastic or even old sheets. This will help protect your furniture from paint splatters, especially when the painters are working on the ceiling.

Remove any fragile or valuable items. Anyone knows just how hard it would be to get paint off a vintage velvet couch - virtually impossible! The safest choice is not just to cover this couch with old sheets, but to actually remove it from the room. It's always better to be safe than sorry. Professional painters are skilled and often are neater than you'd expect. But one slip, one little splatter could damage something that has been in your family for generations. Better to move it into another room just in case.

Take wall sconces and lighting fixtures off the walls. You don't want to cover any of your wall fixtures with paint! The best choice is to gently remove these from the walls. Now your light switch cover you might want to be the same color - let the professional painters paint these for you, as they will match the painting on the light switches to the room perfectly. But it is best to remove every wall accessory from the wall so that they don't get paint on them.

Use painter's tape to mark where belongings go. Painter's tape has improved in recent years, making it so much easier to peel off of walls. This blue masking tape is easily found at your local hardware store. Using painter's tape can help your painter understand exactly what needs to get done - and where your belongings go at the end of a job. Painter's tape helps to keep everything so much more organized.

Plan to take Junior and Fido out for a day of play. There's nothing more frustrating when patiently waiting for paint to dry than to watch it get smudged by someone in your family! The most likely paint smudgers are your little ones or even pets that could get paws or tails along the walls or in open paint cans. The day the room gets painted is the ideal day to take Junior and Fido to the movies or out for pizza. Make sure that the painting room is kept off limits in a gentle way. Be certain to ask the painters how long the paint needs in order to dry safely and put up chairs in doorways to prevent little ones (and little paws) from running through a room accidentally.