5 Practical Tips To Help You Paint Your House

Here at Lally Decorators we like to share some tips with DIY enthusiasts. Here are 5 practical tips to help you make the job of painting your house less daunting!

1 - Plan the project

Decide what rooms you will paint, choose the colours and the paint you want!

2 - Have the correct tools

Once you have decided which rooms or areas you are going to paint make sure you have suitable tools to complete the job. As a general rule we suggest the following

A suitable stepladder

Dropsheets/ dust sheets

A roller cage that can be screwed onto an extension pole

An extension role some people refer to this as a roller pole

One roller sleeve per colour

One 2 inch brush per colour

A rad roller to paint behind your radiator and other awkward areas like above wardrobes or kitchen units

Scraper and filling knife

A caulk gun

3 - Buy Enough Paint

One of the most frustrating things about painting is running out of paint when you are almost finished so make sure you buy enough paint.

5L of wall paint per room in standard sized 3 or 4 house in Dublin’s suburbs usually does the job!

10L bucket is usually needed to paint the walls in most standard Hall Stairs and Landings

15L of emulsion will give you enough paint to apply 1 coat of white emulsion to a standard 3 bedroom house

The amount of paint for your woodwork will depend however 2 x 5L of satinwood should paint the woodwork in most 3 bedroom house provided the woodwork has been previously painted - this makes allowance for doors, frames and architraves, skirtings and window boards

4 - Remove the Small Stuff

Every room in every house has big and heavy items such as furniture and lots of smaller and possibly more delicate items like ornaments, lamps and photo frames.

We also remove the small stuff from any room before we start to paint making sure that we place any breakables someplace safe

We then sheet up the room and paint the room with the furniture in situ. We then move out the furniture so as we can paint the walls and coat the woodwork

Upon completion we move the furniture back to its original place and and put the smaller items back where they belong

5 - Preparation is everything!

It’s all in the preparation is a term that’s frequently used in painting and it’s true. Here’s some practical tips when it comes to preparation. Here are some simple tips to follow:

Make such you rub everything that you intend to paint down with sandpaper

Apply stain block to any water marks/ water stains

Use filler to fill any holes in the ceiling or wall

Use caulk to fill and cracks in joints like in the corners or in the joint on woodwork

We hope this help you and good luck with your painting