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Painting rooms can present some of the most boring work imaginable. It can wreck your marriage. At one time in my life I was a professional house painter (suggested reading: Secret Wigwam of Chappaquiddick.) I painted a lot of rooms. In this post I’ll try and share some tricks I learned to help you almost enjoy painting rooms.

1. Always, always, have the woman of the house decide on the color. No matter how it looks to us men, women notice the subtle variations of colors in other people’s home. Thay are often likely to be anxious to apply those colors to your own rooms. So empower them here—or pay the price! If the color combination they chose appears really wacky, find one on those little card board sheets at the hardware store where you’ll be buying the paint. The little samples often show recommended color combinations. While these recommendations may not be entirely original original, they’re usually proven as esthetically-pleasing combinations. And are great tools for supporting an argument against an “unproven” color combination.

2. Prepare the surface and the floor. If you are painting over semigloss paint (usually used on trim, kitchens, and bathrooms) wash the surface of the wall or trim with TSP. It eliminates grease as well as etching the surface of the old paint. It’s great for preparing kitchens—where grease has a tendency to stay in hard to reach corners.

If you feel like you’d like a little more stick power, a fine sandpaper can be used to help prepare the surface. Sand paper is especially good on preparing doors for painting as they are large and flat. Once you’ve sanded or TSP’d your surfaces, you’ll need to take those hard-to-get areas where you just know that you’ll be making a mess. Be careful with the tape. It can make the job better—or a whole lot worse—especially if you are trying to create a smooth seam from one color to another.

3. Use a good drop cloth. Sometimes buying the cheapest, thinest plastic is not the best idea. You might actually be better off with newspapers. Cheap plastic is slippery and rips easily and if you’re not careful you’ll fall on your ass. Sometimes old beach towels work as well and they’re not as slippery.

4. Buy the very best paint that the store offers. Buying cheap paint usually means that you’ll be painting the same area twice. The job is not much fun the first time, and usually gets worse as it ages. Best to do it one the best way possible by buying the best quality paint.

5. Buy at least one good 4” brush (expect to spend around $10), as well as one really good sash brush (ditto). Buy a weenie roller and tray for painting in small places and “in place” hanging doors. Buy a traditional roller with an extention pole for walls and ceilings.

6. Making work pleasureable. Get a boom box portable style radio and either find music on the radio that you enjoy and can sing to, or play CD’s that you haven’t heard in a while. The importance of music is that it helps to sing during difficult and boring painting jobs. If you have any left over pain pills take 1/2 of one to alter your mood and steady your hand. Avoid alcohol or coffee. One makes you sloppy and one makes you jittery. That’s not where you want to be while painting a house.

Get your spouse or kids to help paint the walls. You can finish up behind them and get what they miss. This gets everyone involved and you have the final say as you’ll paint over their mistakes.

Prepare your work, look over the work to begin and see the completed project in your mind’s eye. Know that you can do it. Any one can paint. But not everyone can enjoy it!

Next: Painting doors.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 6th, 2005 at 9:08 am and is filed under Home Improvement. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.