Painting Tips — Pain in the Attic

Here we are, wrapping up our first project of the New Year. Fortunately, we were able to obtain grant money from the city to put in a new kitchen, electrical box couple new windows, and plumbing. So right off the top that saved us thousands of dollars, not to mention the work that it involves. So the bulk of what needed done is limited to the second floor- a new bathroom, all new ceilings, new paint and flooring. Its not terrible considering the bulk of it is just replacing the old and installing the new.

My job is usually painting, and I hate painting. But its my own fault because I struggle letting anyone else paint. So therefore I do it to myself. What’s worse than painting is prepping to paint. As much as I despise it, it is absolutely necessary. For this property, before I could even prime I needed to go through and remove any nails, outlet covers, staples, blinds- pretty much anything they had on the walls. Next task was to scrub the walls. I typically always use TSP (tri sodium phosphate) to prep the walls. Its good at getting everything off. TSP is toxic though so when handling it make sure to where gloves. The place we’re working at was quite dirty, I was able to get all the grim off the walls but the permanent markers and crayons have to be covered with primer.

Now something I learned with primer is that you can’t just use any primer. If the walls are glossy, you will need a primer that is meant for glossy. A number of years ago, my mom and I were painting a glossy trim in a home and used regular primer. The following day we started to put the first coat of paint on and the primer was literally smearing off. We called our local paint store and described the situation. Once we told them we painted over glossy trim they told us there was nothing we could do except start over. So that meant scrubbing all the primer off of the trim and re priming it with a bonding primer. So ever since then I have made sure to spend a little extra on primer. Some examples I have used are Killz Premiem (about $22) or stix bonding primer ($45), these both work great.

Another tip I have learned along the way is- use ceiling paint on your ceiling. When we were painting an entire house, there were many times that the primer on the ceiling looked good- so I didn’t bother to put another coat of ceiling paint over it. It didn’t make sense to me, until I needed to touch up the ceiling. If you need to touch up the ceiling and its only painted in primer it ends up showing the touch up marks. Whereas if I had used ceiling paint like I was supposed to, the paint would have blended and looked fine. So just a heads up before you get into your next painting project, learn from my experience!

As for paint on your walls, we typically use Valspar because we have a Lowes near by. I honestly feel that if you prep your walls correctly, your paint is already that much more likely to look great and last. Too often when we renovate homes the previous owners painted over everything and anything and the paint job looks like crap. So spend the extra time prepping to paint and you’ll have a finished product you can love for years to come. If you have any tips don’t be afraid to share. I have a love/hate relationship with painting, so any helpful tips would be welcomed!