How to Paint Pro Style
How to Paint Pro Style
(By Jesse Bennett: Dec 13, 2018, Victoria, BC)
Alright today your going to learn how to paint your interior walls within your home just as any professional painter would by using the same tactics and approach. After reading this, you will know how to paint your home the exact same way as any professional painter would paint. You will understand how to cut straight lines without any tape, and you learn how to apply even coats, with a roller, nice even coats, that bring a fantastic finished product. You will also learn how to use certain mud that will prevent flashing, saving you paint and time.
1. First things first, whenever your painting your home, or any home, whether it be a new wall with dry wall or a previously painted wall with paint, you want to examine your surface and look for any damage, by looking and feeling with your hand over the surface. Marking the surface with chalk is a good way to reference what needs to be done, and prevent you from when your painting your home. So begin by covering all furniture with drop clothes or poly. Taping up wood floors by the base board can be done, with tape and cardboard, it can also be left out. If the base boards are being painted, it is likely best to tape up the floor to ensure no brush marks. However, most paints, either acrylic or latex, are water based so brush marks can be removed as long as the paint is still wet.
2. Next you want to remove any fixtures, outlet plates, lighting, pictures, thermostat covers, door bell covers, any and all removable items that are easily removed. Some things, like lighting bases are more time consuming, and can be taped, but for the time it takes to tape verse remove face plates for various items, it is quicker to remove them and way better finished product. I have seen plates covered in 3-4 different coats and colours of paint, and it is just not needed. The amount of time it takes to remove these things is very minimal, and to avoid it is just silly and lazy. So after you have determined the condition of your wall, and removed all the unneeded items, you will want to prepare the surface. Note: For vacuum outlets, they are actually wired in so you can only remove them about a half inch from the wall, which is just enough to get your brush in there and cut behind it.
3. Preparing your wall surface is very important because once it is painted it will reflect any imperfections greatly, so the surface has to be perfect prior to painting it. So what your going to do is take any sort of nail heads, indents, protruding screws, or plastic drywall screws, and you're going to remove any thing that can be removed. Next, anything that cannot be removed, you take your 501 tool, and on its handle is a hard metal rounded surface, which can be used to create nice little dents. You take the handle, press it into the area of concern, like a nail head, push it into the wall and twist it, leaving a nice even rounded dent. Now what this is going to do is give you a good deep surface for drywall compound to fill, so it is not not protruding, and will be even when later sanded. You do this because when a nail head hits the surface of the drywall paper, it actually explodes the paper a little bit and it expands outwardly, which leaves a little crater like you would see on the moon. What your doing is pushing in that crater so that it can then be filled evenly and sanded evenly so that there is no more chance of noticing it ever again. Goodbye imperfections!
4. When considering drywall compounds be careful to make sure that they do not flash (flashing is when you can notice the apparent difference in texture, between where the compound is and is not). An industry secret is to use Sheetrock 45 as a compound because it has the same texture as drywall paper and you can avoid flashing by using it. Now don’t be afraid that you have to mix it up yourself, because it is just water, and it is worth it, because it also has a really short drying time, verse traditional drywall mud, and it does not flash. So when you mix your mud, you want it to be nice and creamy like toothpaste.
5. Once you have your paste, you then begin to apply it to the surfaces that are indented, or damaged, by taking a little bit sparingly on the tip of the putty knife, then applying it to one side from left to right and then from top to bottom, and bam, that is it, now you're done clean off your blade grab a little bit more and continue on. Note: So here's a secret, when you have a corner that isn't perfect, you can fix it up very easily by applying the mud to the corner from inside the wall towards the corner, then coming down on the opposite side of the walls corner and downward evening out the overlapping mud.
6.After you have prepped your wall and mudded it, and then let it dry, so now you want to go over with a quicksand. Now you can use a hand sander in your hand or you can use a 360 radius on an extendable pole, because using an extendable aluminum pole is a very fast and easy way to get an even application without hurting your back. You want to use around a 220 grit sand paper to get a smooth surface, and remember this is just a fast and to even out any missed mud. So go over and sand the entire wall lightly and quickly. Next you want to clean any residual powder off with a damp cloth. And then let that dry for a few min.
7. After the wall is totally clean, you're ready to start painting. You will begin by cutting in your edges. You want to take a brush (a higher quality brush with actual hoarse hair does make it easier then synthetic cheap brushes), and take a can of paint filled with about 2 inches of paint. Begin by dipping in your brush and then remove the access on each side and the bottom, so only the inner brush contains the paint. Now apply the heel of the brush down on the surface about 3 inches away from where you want to cut in, them allow the bristles to expand as you press down, and then guide the outer bristles towards your destination. You will find that at this point the brush is very stable and able to do defined cuts very easily. It is almost like a tripod of support allowing for steady motion. You want to do longer strokes, between 2-3 feet per application of paint. You also want to make sure you fan out any brush marks by using a fairly dry brush and brushing them as if you were removing a spec of dust, flicking ever so gently. You want to draw your first cut line about an 1/8th of an inch away from the edge of the ceiling, baseboard, or corner.
8. Next you are going to roll on your first coat. Now there are different types of rollers that you can use but the terminology that we generally go for with is a cage and sleeve. Your cage is the part the roller goes on, and the roller is the sleeve. Generally, I like to go for between a 13 and 15 mil sleeves, but if you're really good painter sometimes you go to a 20 mil sleeve and depending on the paint quality. Attaching your roller to an aluminum extension stick is a very affective way to paint the different levels of the wall without bending over and hitting the floor or ceiling. These extendable poles allow for you to get the perfect distance from the wall so you're not bending over and you're not close to the wall either which allows for you to get even coverage and application pressure to that roller. The reason this matters is to avoid uneven applications which cause drips, runs and sloppy messes. Another benefit of using the pole is that it allows for an efficient, speedy process that doesn't hurt the back. So when you begin rolling, start by loading up your sleeve and make sure it is saturated but not dripping. You should be able to be far enough back from the wall that you can apply from top to bottom without moving forward or backwards. You want to start from a foot from the top of the ceiling go right up to the ceiling because all that paints going to get globed up there, and then you're going to have to spread it out so you want to start in the middle upper area to allow for expansions. Then you just want to gently let it roll down the wall no pressure but as you go back up and down paint gets worked away you want to apply more and more pressure, just enough to get that paint on there. You're first coat coverage is going to be two rollers wide. Continue to move your roller up and down till you go two wide then back to your original spot evening out the paint and spreading it out for a uniform texture.
On your second application, next to your first, you're also going to start about a foot down go to parallel with your original line from the first application, and you're going to do the exact same thing right next to it, until you get back to your original line where you will backtrack and overlap that first section to blend them together. Note: depending on how your cage is set up, whether on the left or right, will determine which side of the wall you begin from. In this instance the cage bar is on the left, which means we began from the right. This allows you to get close enough to the corner to get in where your cut lines are on the corner. When you come up to fixtures, thermostats or a switches, you can flip your roller from side to side to use the end opposite the cage bar, to get closer in and not have to press as hard and avoiding drips or pooling. This will also allow for you to avoid bumping things with the cage. Also make sure that you get into spaces that are cut in between fixtures, so you texturized them, and maintain the even surface texture. When you get close to corners make sure that you flip your roller around so the cages opposite tot he corner, this way you can get a lot more forgiveness with your roller getting to about within a half inch of the corner. Make sure to not overlap the corner being that the roller will drip paint on the opposing walls edge.
8. So whenever you're painting if you're going to take a break or you going to go away, make sure to load up your roller and load up your brush, otherwise they will thicken up, and when you return you will have partially dried paint, which is annoying.
9. So now you're ready to do your second coat. So for your cut lines on the second coat you can do the same thing you did the first time, except your going to come in all the way to the edge of the adjacent surface, ceiling or base board. You begin by applying the heel of your brush further away from where you're going to go, maybe about 3 in away from the ceiling, and then you want to draw out the heel you want to spread out your brush and you want to expand it to the point where your bristles are expanded but they're still holding that paint from within, then draw your way towards the ceiling, finding your groove and finding your glide, and once you get close to that ceiling and you reach the point, then you want to draw it out in a long fashion. Allow the brush to do the work, and coach it into the straight line. Because of the way the brush is taking the paint from within outwardly, it is fairly easy to get straight controlled lines.
10. Now it's time for your second roll. Here you're not going to need as much paint on your second roll, so be conservative with it on the roller. The paint is going to spread further but make sure to get a good texture when applying, not too thick. Here you will go three rollers wide before reloading, but use the same methods and be sure to blend in each new pass with the last.
11. When your done with the rolling and you need to remove the sleeve from the cage, here is a trick to get it off without having to touch wet paint: simply hit the cage bar from the bottom up with something hard, so it's vertical with your cage, and tap it hard from underneath, until the roller starts to come off and drop into the tray.
12. The final step is to paint the trim on the baseboard, which I leave to the last because it may get bumped or dripped on prior to finishing the walls and/or ceiling. When cutting in the base board just use the same premise as cutting in the ceiling, start away from the cut line, by dipping in your heel into the surface, then expanding the bristles and finding your groove, and then drawing out the line until you get close enough to the edge where you can easily cut the line. When coming to the floor cut, you want to make sure the floor is either, already taped, you can leave about an 1/16th of an inch gap from the floor and it will not be noticeable by anyone observing after from a standing position. When you're painting your baseboard and you got your heal of your brush dug-in, the brushes are going to come close to the edge of the wall and that baseboard, and what you're going to do is just going to let the brush glide on the rail of the baseboard as the bristles come close to the wall and just going to let ride the edge of the board into that groove and once you have your groove you just going to keep chugging along till you run out of paint and repeat it.
