How to Give Your Home A Professional-Looking Paint Job

Spring is the perfect time to review, refresh and redesign your interior spaces. With just a little time and elbow grease, you can update your space and make it feel like new. Duck egg blue, mustard yellow and cherry blossom are but a few of the on-trend colours for Spring 2020, but when it comes to the room of your dreams, feel free to let your imagination wander. After all, you can always paint it again when you tire of the colour.

Before you start grabbing rollers and brushes, though, take a moment to plan and troubleshoot. Here are the most common DIY painting missteps and tips for avoiding them to help you create a professional-looking finish for the job.

Misstep: I’ve finished painting, but I hate the colour.

How to avoid it:

• Understand that colours will look different in the store than they do at home.
• Take paint chips home and tape them to the wall to see how the colour will look in your space.
• Better yet, most paint stores offer small samples or quarts of paint—test out colours by painting select patches of wall with various colours before you re-paint the whole room.
• Stay within the same colour family for a more forgiving repaint job.
• Make sure the prep work you did on the original job was sufficient to prevent imperfections, and if not, address those areas.

Misstep: I’m done painting, but the wall still has gaps and holes in it. I thought the paint would cover everything up.

How to avoid it:

• Know that proper preparation is as important as the painting in order to avoid imperfections.
• Before you start painting (or re-painting), patch gaps, dings and holes in the walls with spackle. For larger cracks, also use a fiberglass mesh tape to prevent the crack from reappearing later.
• Be sure to sand down spackled areas to a smooth, even finish once the spackle is dry.
• Wipe away any spackle dust before touching up or repainting.

Misstep: I keep getting dirt on my brush and roller. What am I doing wrong?

How to avoid it:

• Painting a dirty wall will lead to flaws in your finish.
• Check walls for cracked or flaking paint and remove it before progressing any further.
• Use a rag to wipe the walls with water and a mild detergent solution.
• Let the walls dry completely before you paint.

Misstep: I’m having trouble removing my painter’s tape cleanly. What can I do?

How to avoid it:

• For best results, remove the painter’s tape while the paint is still wet, which will prevent the paint from bonding to the tape.
• If the paint has dried and bonded to the tape, use a razor blade to slowly and carefully cut the seal between the paint and the tape. 
• Use window cleaner or a citrus-based cleaner if there is excess residue.
• Always check the tape’s packaging for usage specifications, like what kind of surfaces it’s designed for and how long it can remain on the surface and still be removed cleanly.
• When used according to directions, painter’s tape should remove easily.

With these tips and the right tools, you can paint like a pro and make your space feel like new. You might love it so much you end up giving the whole house a Spring makeover!

How to Choose the Right Painter’s Tape for You

Using painter’s tape is the best way to avoid mistakes and produce clean paint lines, which saves you the time and the headache of having to do touchups later. Every painter’s tape is different, though, and not all tapes are designed for all surfaces or applications, so it’s important to choose the right one for your specific job. Follow these tips when choosing your painter’s tape:

• Do not judge a tape by its price; whether it is the most or the least expensive does not mean it will be any easier to apply or remove.
• Know what you are painting: Different tapes are designed to adhere to different materials. There are tapes with different paper backings and adhesion levels, made specifically for a variety of surfaces, like:
• Wallpaper
• Painted walls that are dry to the touch but not fully cured
• Metal
• Glass
• Vinyl
• Finished woodwork
• Unfinished wood

The Painter’s Mate® brand offers products that are the painter’s mate for quality and value. Painter’s Mate offers cost-effective, professional-grade adhesive products that can be used for a variety of painting and remodeling projects, indoors or outdoors. Painter’s Mate Ultra®, for example, is a professional painter’s tape that offers a premium adhesive to get professional results and sharper paint lines without the premium price:

• Formulated with PaintSync Technology®, which allows for better adhesion to hard-to-stick-to surfaces, without damaging what’s underneath.
• Features 14-day clean removal, allowing for longer time between prep and painting.
• Recommended for interior use on painted walls, woodwork, glass, metal and vinyl.
• Can be used for indoor and outdoor applications.
• Painter’s Mate Ultra® is available in Canada at Sherwin-Williams.

For more information, visit https://www.paintersmategreen.com.

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