A Pro Guide to Painting a Room

Painting a room is a popular do-it-yourself project since it can be done in a few hours or days, depending on the scope of the project. While painting a room isn’t necessarily hard, you don’t want the end result to look like it was done by an amateur. This is why we’ve created this pro guide to painting a room. We’ll outline the general process for painting a room as well as share tips on how to avoid common mistakes.

Plan Your Colour Scheme

The first thing you need to do is plan your colour scheme. Determine what colour you want the walls to be before you start buying paint, or if you want an accent wall in another colour. Figure out now if the ceiling should be refreshed along with the rest of the room. Then you’ll know how much paint you’ll need to buy.

Prep and Prime Before You Do Anything Else

Don’t paint over cracked, warped, and otherwise uneven walls. You should clean the walls and repair any defects in the walls before you paint. You may need to have the cracked or flaking plaster repaired or replaced before you repaint the room.

If you want to have this done professionally, there are plenty of plasterers that will get the job done for you. Ornadec, who are specialist plasterers in Edinburgh, are the perfect example as they have a stunning gallery on their website that showcases their previous work. They will be able to repair decorative plastering on the walls and cornices. They can also install decorative plaster if you want something more sophisticated. The end result will be far superior to nearly every other decorative element you could install in a room.

Next, you can make sure you fill in the gaps and cracks with caulk and create a smooth surface. Also, if you’re going to paint the ceiling, then paint the ceiling first. This will prevent drips on the walls. 

Prime and Paint the Walls

Primer is required if the walls have dark stains or you’ve got patched defects in the drywall. If you don’t apply primer over those patches, it will show through latex paint, though you can get away with just priming the repaired areas. 

Primer is also necessary if there is a dark or very vivid colour on the walls. The colour will show through light latex paint without primer. In this case, you’ll want to apply two coats of paint on top of the primer. Primer is also recommended if the walls were previously painted with oil-based paint. In these cases, you have to prime first with a stain-blocking primer.

Paint the Trim

Find out if the interior trim was painted with an oil-based enamel because, if it was, it may need to be covered with primer before you can apply latex-based enamel. You can do this by rubbing it with a rag dipped in denatured alcohol. If the old paint comes off, it is latex paint and you don’t need to apply primer before painting the trim.

Wait for the walls to dry before you paint the trim and start closest to the ceiling. You can then move on to the door frame, window frames, and baseboards.

Clean Up

The final step in a paint job is the clean-up. Clean the paintbrushes if you want to be able to reuse them. Pick up the drop cloths, replace the furnishings, and you’re officially done.

Painting a room is a great, cheap way to refresh a space. However, you need to have to take the necessary steps to do it right, unless you want to have to repaint it again.