Tools You Need
Paint Scraper
Sand paper
Putty Knife
Moorlastic® Lightweight Compound
Moorlastic Vinyl Spackling Paste
Moore's® QD 30®
Benjamin Moore Fresh Start®
Painter’s plastic drop cloths
Masking tape or blue “painter’s tape
Rags
Tack cloth (if sanding)
Sponge and sponge mop
Soap and water
Stain-blocking primer
Dust mask, gloves and goggles (for solvents)
Vacuum
Stepladder
Safety Tip
Was your home built before 1978? If so, you might have lead in the primer and paint. The dust from scraping and sanding could reintroduce that lead into your environment and possibly cause serious health problems. To test suspected surfaces, invest in a lead test kit and also visit the EPA site for more information.
Did you know? For environmental reasons, it is now against the law to do do dry sanding. Wet the walls first with water (but do not saturate) before sanding.
Proper prepping your interiors is more than half the battle when it comes to super paint jobs.
Want to avoid flaky finishes, messy furniture and those kinds of stains that reappear after you‘ve painted? Pros learn early that properly prepping a room for painting is essential to a beautiful paint job. And it’s time well spent. From covering your furniture and floors to smoothing and cleaning surfaces, taking time to prep can actually speed up your painting time, minimize cleanup time and ensure a more professional finish. In fact, for best results, about 50-75% of your total work time should be spent on preparation alone. Here’s a clear action plan and the tools you’ll need.
Clear the decks. Empty the room as much as possible—you’ll have less to splatter on and less to trip over! Box up knickknacks, remove light furniture and take down draperies and drapery hardware. Heavy furniture should be moved away from the wall into the center of the room. Just make sure you cover everything left with painter’s plastic.
Strip the walls. Remove all paintings, posters and wall decor, including nails, tacks, tape, hangers, etc. Patch the holes you don’t plan to reuse with lightweight spackle (we recommend Moorlastic® Lightweight Compound and Moorlastic® Vinyl Spackling Paste).
Protect the floors, trims and more. Paint has a way of sneaking into places you’d never imagine, so cover every inch of your floors with drop cloths. But keep a lookout while you paint: drop cloths have a tendency to creep, especially when you walk over them. Cover windowsills, trims and doors with plastic or wide tape.
Clean off the grime. Paint doesn’t stick well to dirty walls so pre-cleaning is essential. Check wall surfaces for makeup, permanent marker, crayon, and smoke and water stains. And give a thorough pre-cleaning to bathrooms (behind the sink and toilet) and kitchens (near the stove and sink). Tackle minor stains with a good household detergent and water: heavy grease deposits might need harder-working trisodium phosphate (TSP). Mold & mildew should also be removed. (Before cleaning water stains on the ceiling, investigate the culprit: you might have a leaky roof, plumbing problems or ice in the attic.) If you do have hard-to-remove stains, seal them with a stain-blocking primer before painting; two coats should ensure the stain doesn’t reappear after painting.
Ensure electrical safety. Before painting, remove all electrical covers and light fixtures and reinsert the screws into the unit so you don’t lose parts. If you can’t remove light fixtures, at least wrap them in paper and secure with blue painter’s tape. If you want to paint light switches, do so when they are off the wall.
Repair cracks. Examine all walls and ceilings for holes, cracks, peeling and split or cracked caulking around windows and where trim meets the wall. Use a putty knife to fill cracks with either spackling compound or quality acrylic caulk. If the trim is painted, recaulk with a good siliconized acrylic caulk or elastomeric caulk. If spackling is used, wait till it dries and then sand it smooth and flush with the surface. Caulk should be smoothed and feathered as it’s applied.
Sand where appropriate. Scrape loose any flaky paint. While wearing a dusk mask, sand the walls well. (Before doing so, check out the Safety Tip to the right.) To ensure proper adhesion, glossy surfaces should be smoothed with fine sandpaper. Brush off or vacuum up any sanding dust before painting and wipe with a tack cloth.
Apply a stain-blocking primer. Bare or new surfaces and surfaces where paint is deteriorating needs a prime coat. (If the old coating is in good shape, it can serve as the prime coat after light sanding. For hard-to-remove stains such as crayon, graffiti, grease marks, water stains, cedar and redwood bleed, asphalt, creosote, rust and smoke, spot- prime the affected areas with Moore's® QD 30® or Benjamin Moore Fresh Start® All Purpose 100% Acrylic Primer to prevent "bleeding" through the finish coat. The Acrylic Primer is blister resistant, quick to dry, splatterproof and has minimal odor with excellent flow and leveling. (Always check the label on the topcoat you’ve chosen: it will recommend the proper primer to use.)
Don’t know what to paint first? Check out our optimal painting order.
SMART TIP: Forgot which kind of paint you previously used on a surface? Here’s how to find out: Soak the end of a clean white cloth with denatured alcohol and gently rub the surface you want to repaint. If the paint softens or stains your cloth, the finish is an acrylic or latex paint. If your cloth remains unstained, then it’s an oil base. Why should you care? You can’t apply acrylic latex house paints over alkyd, oil-base finish without first priming. However, an alkyd oil-based house paint can be applied over an acrylic, latex finish.