How To Paint A Wall - Top Interior Painting Tips

Hey again, what's up guys and girls, it's your friendly Calgary Painter here again with another fast, friendly, helpful time and money saving painting blog post. And in this How To Paint A Wall - Top Interior Painting Tips blog post, I'm going to share with you some of my top tips for painting a wall. If you are doing Interior Painting yourself, or thinking about hiring in a House Painting Company, or a painting contractor to complete Wall Painting for you, these tips will help you get the best results and the best Painting Prices.

Now the first tip that I'm going to share with you is to take your time with the preparation. Now I haven't got a huge amount of paint here, I'm literally just going to paint this wall but even so the preparation is so important there is no way I'm just going to get my brush and roller and throw a load of paint on the wall. 

We need to make sure the wall is ready and suitable to be painted. If you've got gaps along the ceiling line or between the wall and the skirting, then you do need to fill those. You can fill those with a suitable decorator's cork and obviously wait for that to dry. Now for the purpose of this How To Paint A Wall - Top Interior Painting Tips post, I'm not painting the skirting. 

But at the same time i still want to make sure it's caulked and filled and there's no gaps. For that we're using poly filler decorators caulk. And the thing I like about this product is it's ready to paint over after an hour. You also want to ensure that you've filled any holes. Now there were a few pictures up on this wall and I've already filled the holes. 

And not actually that long ago and I use this bartoline ready mixed quick dry lightweight filler and this stuff is fantastic because it dries so quickly. You can almost apply it and paint within again 30 or 60 minutes. So I have already filled a couple of the holes so what we need to do now is to make sure the wall is completely smooth.

How To Paint A Wall Like A Pro.

And there's no old bits of paint or bits of dirt that got in the paint before. Because sometimes when you feel the wall it does feel quite rough and a few sharp spots. So what we're going to do is take a bit of 80 grit sandpaper and just go over that wall to give it a bit of a sound as we call it in the trade. Keying so we're going to key the surface make sure you mask up.

For this you don't want to be breathing in any of that dust. So now the paint that's on the wall already is a matte finish, which means it's it's not a very kind of shiny smooth finish. It does almost have a bit of a rough feel to it which means when you're painting over it you can paint over it with very little sanding. 

However if you're painting over a wall that has a bit more of a sheen on it, or if you've previously used a silk emulsion, it will need a bit more of a sand. You really do need to scratch it up a bit before you apply the new coat. Now what is a good idea to do once you've done this sanding is just to give it a bit of a wipe with a damp cloth. Also get rid of any cobwebs that are up there. 

Now my next tip is to ensure that you've got a decent brush or a good enough big enough brush to do the job. The last thing you want to do is start doing all the cutting in with a brush that's too small and not suitable. So I've just picked this brush up from my local hardware store and this is a monarch razorback. I would usually use a Purdy brush when I'm doing any decorating. 

And if i was doing a whole room the great thing about a Purdy brush or something similar is they can hold a lot of paint. And the cutting in just absolutely flies by. But for the purpose of this How To Paint A Wall - Top Interior Painting Tips internet blog post, I've bought a pretty standard paintbrush from the hardware store. 

How To Paint A Wall With A Roller.

As i've already said and this would be absolutely ideal for somebody at home doing diy and doing their own painting. This is a three inch brush. It's got quite a wide ferrule which means it will hold a fair amount of paint. And it's also angled which is perfect for doing the cutting in in the corners. Because what I don't want to do is get paint on these two walls. Either side of the wall that I'm painting and I know from experience that this type of brush is actually going to be pretty good for cutting in. 

Just bear in mind if you've got a lot of cutting in you want a big brush. My next tip and before we start cutting in is to make sure that you wet your equipment or prime your brush and your rollers. What we don't want to do is to start dipping our dry brushes and rollers straight in the paint. There are two reasons for this. And the first reason is of course if we wet our brush or our roller it makes it easier to clean at the end of the day because it prevents the paint from drying too quickly on the bristles and on the roller itself. 

And secondly it just helps to pick up more paint and it allows you to paint or roll a lot easier it just comes off the roller or the brush a lot nicer. So generally what I would do with a brush is i would pretty much soak it. So I put it under running water. So i really do get the brush completely wet. What I've done here just put it in a bucket with some clean water in there so those bristles really are completely soaked. 

Now the last thing you want to do is perhaps just squeeze it and then start painting with it. A lot of water in there. So this is where we can spin the brush, or step outside and knock the brush off on into an out of the way place to tap all the water out.  Now this has got a nice long thin handle which means I can keep the brush bristles within the bucket and give it a real good spin. 

Now that is not dry it's certainly not dry but there is no water in there at all no excess water that's going to come off on your wall or in your paint. Similar to the rollers I'm not going to dip the roller in there or I guess you could but then I would take it outside and give it a real good spin. What i do with a roller is just wet my hand and almost kind of dry my hand with the roller.

How To Paint A Wall Without Streaks. 

I want to make it damp. That's how I want it. I don't want it dry, I don't want it dripping, because if it is dripping, and then you put it in the paint you start rolling, it will splatter everywhere. So make sure it's damp, not wet, and then the same with the big roller. Great stuff. My equipment is now primed and ready for painting. 

I'm almost tempted to put some water in with this because it really is gloopy. It is recommended if the conditions are warm. If you're doing this kind of thing in the summer about 10% water added to your paint is ideal. But I'm just looking at the consistency of this and thinking I'm going to mix some water in this. 

I think now that this is adequately mixed I'll put some water in it. It's definitely runnier than what it was but it's still quite thick. It is quite a thick paint. But this leads me on to my next tip which is going to be to use one of these use a can. Use a paint can. What you don't want to be doing is using this. Whether it's half full, or full, you're carrying this around and you're dipping your brush in trying to paint. 

You don't want all this paint in your hand particularly if you've got a larger five liter tub. That's not cool so really good idea get yourself a cutting can. You can just put a relatively small amount in here and it's not going to be heavy. It's nice and easy to get into. You haven't got this rimmed edge here and just going to make it so much easier and less likely to make a huge mess if you drop it. 

For best results I really want my paintbrush to have lots of paint on it. What I don't want to do is just have a little bit of paint on the end of it. I want to make sure the paint really does get all the way into those bristles. The cutting in for this was going to be pretty straight forward. I haven't got any plugs to cut in around just around the four sides of the wall.

How To Paint A Wall Mural. 

Quite excited about using this brush. So what we'll do is just put a load of paint next to the corner. What you don't want to do is try and cut in straight away. This isn't a massively wide brush, it doesn't hold a huge amount of paint. But I've got a feeling it's going to be quite nice for cutting in. So there we go.  Really got plenty on that brush. 

Now so what we'll do we'll just start to bring that brush closer to the edge. So doing an upward stroke as well, and then look at that lovely straight line. Lovely bit of cutting in there. Let's get this bit down in the corner, and the reason I went for this angled brush as well, is because you'll see actually getting into the corners is a lot easier when the brush is angled. 

There look at that that's lovely. Same on the bottom. We put some paint on there. Make sure we've got plenty in the brush. And then we'll just cut that in along that skirting line. There. Fantastic. This brush is quite nice. Now my next tip is, what we do once we've done the cutting in with the brush, I don't want to leave it like this because there are brush marks in it, or tram lines in it. 

So I'm going to get my mini roller. I'm going to load that up with some paint. Not too much. I just want to wet it really. And then what we'll do here is just do a little bit more cutting in or going over the cutting in with the mini roller. You can get quite close to the wall. Be careful but you don't hit the ceiling or you will have to do some touch up ceiling painting. 

But you can get quite close. And it just gets rid of any brush marks. So I'm going to do this all the way around. Professionals don't do this, but if this is your first time painting, you can't go wrong. Once I've done this, so a little bit of time. I'm not going to do all of this and then come back to this. I'll probably do a a meter or so and then go over it with the mini roller. 

How To Paint A Wall To Look Like Barn Wood.

Next up we're going to roll the walls. Now you could just use a roller like this. This is a 12 inch roller this is what I tend to use most of the time. And you could just use this as it is. But do you know what?  It's much easier if you get yourself a pole. So if you've got a roller make sure it's got a screw on the end or a thread on the end and get yourself a roller pole. 

Now I can reach the ceiling. As you can see I don't need an extension as such but using a pole. Makes it so much easier. You can use two hands. You can keep it straighter. and uh, it's a lot quicker. Good idea if you've got lots of painting. Get yourself a roller pole as I've mentioned already. I'm using a 12 inch roller. 

And this is a medium nap or a medium pile. You don't want anything too short. That just makes it quite difficult to put on the wall especially if you're using emulsion. And at the same time you don't want anything that's too long because that's going to give you quite a rough finish. And usually if you were doing an exterior wall with a masonry paint then you would use a much thicker pile. 

But for this job I've got a medium as you can see here. And I also had a medium pile on my mini roller so it's been a good idea to try and get your mini roller and your big roller roughly the same because when I do the rolling with this I want to be able to blend in to the same texture as with my mini roller.

All right let's load up then and get this wall painted. Takes a little bit of time to get the roller completely soaked in paint. What I wouldn't recommend doing is just putting it deep in the paint and just completely soaking it or just kind of dip it in and roll it off. This is quite thick paint it's not very runny but there we go there's my roller now looks pretty good plenty of paint on there. 

How To Paint A Wall Fast.

We're going to hit the wall. What we don't want to do here is go really close to the corner because this is new paint or I've just loaded it with paint. If I go straight here I could end up with a rather thick line of paint very close to the edge and I'm going to have to clean that up. So what we do is start a little bit away from the edge. 

And i start roughly in the middle maybe about two thirds up come all the way down and then back up again. Now I can tell straight away that there's not enough paint on here. And this is only just getting soaked in paint. So I'll just come down move it over slightly. So I'm just going over the blank line or the bit that I missed this. 

Go up and down a couple of times and actually that was just the right amount of paint. Now I've gone just over the line where I cut in here. And at the bottom and just over on the side as well and because I started here, get the paint off, then move it over. It means that I haven't got a thick line of paint. 

Quite a good tip that one. There you go there's another one for you. And the more times I get my roller into the paint the better it will become and the more paint it will hold. So again what I want to do here I'm going to leave a little bit of a cut. I'm not going to go right over it. I'm going to get the paint on the wall and then I'll come up or just move it over slightly to cover over that bit up on this and then back over again and back down. 

Yeah I'm going to be doing two coats on this wall and straight away you can see as the paint starts to dry. Definitely does need two coats. Usually two coats. Most paints two coats. And if you're doing something of a very similar color to what you're painting over you can get away with one coat. Or if you're doing it the same color and just refreshing it you could probably just get away with one coat of paint again too.

How To Paint A Wall With A Brush.

I've done yellow not too long ago and I think i ended up doing about four coats which was a a bit of a pain. So I'm hoping this is just going to be two, but we'll see how we go. Now you need a good balance here. You don't want to put too much paint on, but then you don't want to put too little on either. And what we're going to do is just roll that up and down in vertical lines just like so. 

Now this is looking really smooth already but what you can do. Just to ensure a really smooth finish with a semi dry not a lot of paint on your roller you can just go over it again very lightly not a lot of pressure you don't want to be applying pressure to your roller because you really don't want to bend this either and you don't want to ruin your your roller. 

But just by gently going over it you can flatten it even more. But I can tell you already that's looking pretty good. So we're just going to use this same technique. Just to go all the way along. Now personally I do start in the middle. As I've already mentioned. However there are some people who will say start at the bottom, start the top, it's your own personal preference. 

The reason why I like to start in the middle is because when your rollers fill up with paint if you just start here and then come down you've got lots of paint here and not a lot here. Kind of similar to starting close to the edge. So if we start in the middle we put a lot in the middle here it goes thinner. 

Then you pick it up again as you come down and then it goes thinner on the way down. That's my theory. That's the way I like to do it. Now even if you've got the thickest paint you will get some splatter.  Tiny flickers of paint coming off the wall. I mean I can feel it on my hand. I can see it on my hand. So it is obviously coming off and going onto the floor onto the dust sheets. 

How To Paint A Wall And Trim.

So one thing that I do is I often wipe the skirt in with a wet cloth. So if it's wet before I start rolling it's much easier to get that paint off. So again I'll just go over it very lightly with a kind of almost dry roller just to give it a little bit of a smoother finish. You can probably hear as the amount of paint on the roller becomes less and less it becomes a lot quieter. 

And it's usually at that point where it really starts to smooth out the wall. I have already done that bit so I'm just going to go back over here there we go there's my first coat hopefully my first of two coats but we'll see it's plenty of paint. I've definitely got plenty of paint to do three if I need to. My next top tip is how to store your brushes and rollers in between coats. 

Or if you're going to use them again the next day. Because what you don't want to be doing is wasting time and making a mess cleaning everything up once you've done one color, or, you've done a bit and then next day you're going to have to do it all over again. So the best thing to do here and I'll show you to start with the brush is just get off any excess paint.

You don't want to try and get this completely dry but certainly get any major paint off there. Grab yourself some cling film. And this is what I like to do with the brushes. Then just wrap that over a couple of times in the cling film and that will stay wet for days. Now that will certainly be no problem to use again tomorrow if you make it quite tight around the fair or fold it over. Perfect. 

That's sorted. I will do exactly the same with my mini roller. So a little bit of cling film. Sometimes I will take the sleeve off, sometimes I won't just wrap it round. There we go. Simple as that. That's ready for the next day. What else have we got. Big roller. So I might use a longer bit of cling film. What I might do is use a bit of this plastic sheeting that I've got. 

How To Paint A Wall To Look Like Bricks.

And I just open this up like this. So roller on there, cover it, cover it, cover it, fold it over, fold it over, and again, and stick a little bit of masking tape just over that. Tape to not necessarily keep it air tight but just to stop it coming off and that will be absolutely fine for the next day. And then with my scuttle and my kettle very similar I will just spit a cling film over the top like that. 

And I'll often get my cloth make sure it's damp and then just use that over the top to hold the cling film down. So quick as you like. That's all ready to go in the next couple of hours or tomorrow. First coat done and that is dry. Ready for the second coat. The steps you took on the first coat are exactly the same for the second coat, and even the third coat if you need to. 

Well the second coat is done it's almost dry and I'm pretty happy that I don't need to put a third coat on there. The final thing to do is clean our equipment, and the last tip that I'm going to share with you is the best way to clean your equipment and get it dry and ready for next time. Get someone else to do it. Just joking. But that is the easiest way. 

Any paint that's left in the kettle again we can just transfer that back. Now some people will suggest that you don't put old paint or paint from your kettle back in to a new tub or an unused paint tub but I say I'm not wasting it. Now to make cleaning a bit easier it's a good idea to make sure you've got yourself a tool just like this one. 

And this is excellent for cleaning your rollers. So what we need to do is to get all the paint off this roller. I tend to do this over the scuttle because it's a much larger area for me to scrape the paint into. Now I will give my scuttle a rinse out but as you can see there's a there's a few years of paint on there so I don't bother cleaning it out properly I'll just give it a rinse. 

How To Paint A Wall With A Roller Without Without Streaks.

So we really want to make sure we get all the paint out of this brush. This is really worth taking your time to get everything clean. Now I'm not worried about getting a bit of paint on the handle here but I do like to remove as much paint as possible on the ferrule. I tend to use a scourer for this as well it's a good idea just use a little bit of washing up liquid on the brush. 

Really help to get that paint out. And then we can give a good scrub as well with a scourer. I really just want to keep doing this until the water runs clear. And with the roller we've just got to keep rinsing it and cleaning it until this comes up clear as well until the water runs clear. Better wash it up liquid really helps to get that last bit of paint out. 

My brushes and rollers are now nice and clean last thing to do spin them. Look at that. Perfect. All ready for next time. I do hope you found this How To Paint A Wall - Top Interior Painting Tips blog post interesting and informative, and giving you the confidence to go ahead and paint your own walls. You will probably get the best results possible by calling in a professional house painter to paint or repaint your house and home interior rather than doing that yourself.

If you are local to the Calgary, Alberta, Canada area, 1/2 Price Pro Calgary Painting can likely help you save some time and some money on professional interior house painting like wall painting. Painting and repainting walls is most of the work most professional painters see along the way. We do our best to paint out like brand new looking better painting results. Give us a call today if you could use some cost effective help painting your walls.