10 painting tips to get professional results
When you want to smarten up your apartment or just want to move into a new one, you usually don't get round to doing the decorating. As beautiful as it all looks when you're done, the renovations themselves can be extremely exhausting. In order to make the next renovation a little easier, we've made the following list of 10 helpful tips which will noticeably decrease the manual labor needed to paint the walls and clean the brushes.
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1. Vaseline
Instead of fiddling about taping over small fittings like screws or hinges that you don't want to paint, you can smear Vaseline over them. After painting, you just need to wipe these places with a cloth. The paint will be wiped off with the Vaseline.
2. De-fluff your paint roller
Paint rollers are outstanding when it comes to painting large surfaces quickly. However, cheap products can have the unfortunate tendency to molt and, in doing so, ruin your freshly-painted wall. So before you begin painting, run a lint roller over the paint roller or use Scotch tape to get rid of excess fluff.
3. Elastic band
A classic home decor tip: stretch an elastic band over the paint tin to use it as a paint scraper. If you use one elastic band for a longer time, just make sure that it doesn't become porous and snap, causing paint to be thrown about all over the place.
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4. Keep your paint tray clean
The most annoying thing about painting has to be cleaning the paintbrushes and the paint tray afterward. At least you can save yourself some effort on the last one, by lining your paint tray with aluminum foil before you start work. When you're done, you only need to dispose of the foil, and the tray looks as good as new.
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5. Seal the masking tape
When you cover the baseboard or the doorframe with masking tape to paint the walls, run a scraper along the edges to make sure the tape sticks tightly. That way, you're playing it safe and making sure the paint doesn't run under the edges of the tape, leaving behind traces on things that shouldn't be painted.
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6. Removing masking tape
After the paint has dried and it's time to remove the masking tape, there's the danger that this will smudge the paint and leave behind unattractive remnants from the tape. To remove the masking tape simply and cleanly, first warm it with a hairdryer.
In general, when removing the masking tape, it's recommended that you pull it away at a slight angle from the edge of the paint. This will give you a clean, straight line, without smudging.
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7. Portable paint palette
For small paint jobs up a ladder or around the house, you might want to try the following decorating tip, which will help you carry around the paint and the brush in only one hand. As shown in the following picture, cut a large piece out of the front of a plastic bottle.
Firstly, it forms a sort of paint tray that you can put the paint in. The edges can be used for scraping the paintbrush and furthermore, the opening in the neck of bottle provides somewhere you can stick the paintbrush, with the handle inside.
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8. Small paint rollers
When painting the walls, it can be problematic using a big roller when it comes to painting in the corners because they usually have a plastic cap on the end. Painting the exposed areas with a brush or holding the roller upright can potentially lead to different textures in the paint.
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Instead, grab a small paint roller, because in contrast to the large ones, small rollers are fully covered with fabric and are particularly suitable for use in painting in the corners.
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9. Roller in chips tube
Chips tubes are especially good for storing paint rollers. If you plan to use your roller again after painting, clean it, wrap it in a plastic bag and stick it in a chips tube. This protects it from getting dirty or being crushed by other things, so it's in good condition when you need it again.
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10. Cleaning paintbrushes
When you want to clean the paintbrush of, for example, oil paint, you usually stand the paintbrush in a glass with cleaning solution. However, if you put the brush in bristles first, standing on the floor of the glass, they could bend.
To prevent this, attach a foldback clip to the paintbrush handle. Turn out one arm of the clip and lay both arms on the rim of the glass so that the paintbrush is evenly immersed in the liquid, without touching the bottom of the glass.
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You can watch many of the tips outlined here in this video, as well as a few more:
Thanks to these tips, painting your apartment should be a much cleaner affair in future. Wrapping the paint tray in foil alone should save you a lot of time. No longer do you need to dread the effort it will take, you can simply get going!