So you’re thinking about painting a room in your house but, you don’t want to waste an entire weekend doing it? Allow me to share the 7 steps that you can use to knock out your project like a professional!
Step 1: Gather Your Paint and Your Tools
The last thing you’re going to want to do when trying to quickly finish your paint project is to make an extra trip to the paint store in the middle of working. You're going to need most, if not all of these tools for your project, especially if you want to be efficient. Make sure you grab what you need when you are at the paint store so that you don’t have to make any unnecessary trips. Here are the tools that we bring to every project here in Maryland, that allow us to be the most efficient:
Step 2: Cover Your Floors and Any Furniture in the Room
If you are painting your ceilings you will need to make sure that you cover every inch of your floor and every piece of furniture. The last thing you want to do is spend an hour or two scrubbing paint splatters off of everything. We highly recommend using plastic drop cloths for covering the furniture that can't be removed from the room.
If you are only painting the walls, you'll be able to simply spread drop cloths around the perimeter of the room. Taking the time to do this step will save you a bunch of time cleaning up at the end so make sure that you don’t skip this step.
Step 3: Prep Work (Optional)
It’s completely acceptable to skip this step and move straight to step 4. Not every room will need repairs to the drywall so if you are happy with the way your walls look there’s no point in spending time in this step. However, if you would like to improve the condition of your walls or caulk your trim and baseboards now would be the best time to do so.
In this blog, we won't be covering the steps for how to do a drywall repair but stay tuned for future blog posts on the subject.
Keep in mind if you do any repairs on your wall you will likely need to wait 24 hours before sanding them down.
Pro tip: Make sure to fully clean up any dust before moving on to the next step.
Step 4: Paint the Ceilings, Baseboards, and Trim.
If you decide that you don't need to paint the ceilings or trim then feel free to skip this step altogether. However, if you are painting one or both of these surfaces you'll definitely want to read this section to make sure that you are being as efficient as possible!
If you decide that you would like to paint the baseboard make sure you don’t miss this step. To save time when cutting in your baseboard, run a line of tape on the floor along the baseboards. This step is pretty straightforward on hard floors, however depending on the length of your carpet you may have to tuck the tape into the corner where the carpet meets the baseboard. This makes cutting in the bottom of the baseboards a breeze.
If you have a partner helping you out with this project you can take on the different parts of this step at the same time. One of you will simply work on the ceilings while the other paints the trim and baseboard. If not, we prefer to start with trim allowing them to have as much time as possible to dry before step 5.
During these steps, there is no need to be careful about getting paint on the walls. Your focus should simply be to apply an even and complete coat of paint to the ceilings and trim. Whatever paint you get on the walls will be fixed in step 6 so feel free go nuts!
Pro tip: If you are re-applying the same color as before on the trim and ceilings you can often get away with only doing one coat of paint. Make sure that you achieve complete coverage or else the finished product may appear patchy in certain areas.
Step 5: Mask off your baseboards and trim
Pro tip: It's best to wait 8 hours before applying tape to fresh paint. However, if your room has good air circulation you may be able to start this step within 4 hours of painting the trim. You can increase airflow in the room by bringing in a fan and turning it to its highest setting. It's important to make sure that there isn't excess dust from step 3, or your daily life, in the room before starting this step. If you don't you might end up blowing dust onto your freshly painted trim.
Make sure to give your baseboards enough time to dry before starting this step. It’s important to test the paint to see if it is dry to the touch before putting any tape down on it. So go ahead and gently touch the top of your trim to see if it’s ready. If it passes the test and no paint comes off on your finger it’s time to start masking.
It’s important to use high-quality tape here. Make sure that you are using blue painters tape at a minimum. Our recommendation however is the 1-inch green frog tape. Higher-quality tape is more gentle and won’t easily ruin the fresh paint below it. It will also prevent the paint from bleeding through the tape when painting the walls.
Pay close attention to step six. This is where it all comes together
Step 6: Paint the walls
You're in the home stretch but don’t get lazy yet. This is the step that separates the amateurs from the pros. But I have a tip that will make your cut-ins look so sharp that people will be asking you for the phone number of your painter. Feel free to send them to us if you like. We won’t mind!
Painting your walls should be done in this order if you want it to turn out the way the pros do it.
Roll out the walls with the first coat of paint.
Cut in your ceilings. Take your time here since we didn’t put tape on the ceilings.
The make or break step. This is the secret to having incredibly clean cut in lines. The trick is to run a thin bead of caulk along your tape line where it meets the wall then immediately do your baseboard cut-ins. The caulk will seal any gaps between your wall and your tape leaving you with the most professional lines you’ve ever seen.
Second Coat. Next, do a second round of ceiling cut-ins followed by your second coat of paint on the walls rolling down to your tape which will act as a second coat of paint on your baseboard cut-ins as well!
Important note: It’s important to remove the tape shortly after rolling on your second coat of paint (while it’s still wet) to prevent any paint from peeling off of your walls.
Pro tip: if you have little to no experience painting we recommend following these steps one or two walls at a time so that you prevent your paint from drying up in the middle of the process.
Step 7: Remove the tape, clean up, and enjoy!
If you’ve followed the last 6 steps then congratulations, you’ve just painted your room in record time! Now it’s time to remove the tape, clean up, and enjoy your freshly painted room!
However, if you live in or around Baltimore Maryland, and after reading this article you thinking "Why don't I just get an estimate for my interior painting project?" Aurora Painting would be more than happy to help you out with that! You might also be interested in reading about what it costs to paint a room in Baltimore County Maryland. Our other article can help you figure that out. Don't worry, the same pricing principles apply to all parts of Maryland, so if you live in Harford County, Carrol County, or Howard County do yourself a favor and check that article out! However, if you're ready to go right now then feel free to schedule a call below!
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