How To Prep A Room to Paint it?
Question:I need to paint my new apartment but I noticed the walls are NOT perfect. What do I need to do? Essentially, I am asking, how do you prep a room to paint it?
Answers:
Remove fixtures, screws, covers, etc from the walls. Fill in any dents or holes with spackle. Allow the spackle to fully dry and then sand it flat. Usually you will need to spackle more than once to get the wall looking good. If the wall has never been painted or if you are painting a light color over a darker color, you will need to use a coat of primer over the whole area. If your walls are not in great condition, use a flat paint which helps hide imperfections. The downside to flat paint is that it is less tolerant to moisture or being cleaned. The prep part of painting will likely take more time than the actual painting, but it is critical to making the project turn out looking good.
1. Remove any loose paint,
2. Fill cracks and holes with putty,
3. Sand down these spots until they are smooth, (you may have to repeat 2 and 3 a few times for larger imperfections)
4. Lightly sand the entire room (use a "pole sander" if you have one, it will only take a few minutes)
5. Use a sealer to paint over the areas you puttied, especially the larger ones.
6. Paint!
oh, and don't forget to cover the floors before you start.
Ok here goes...
Surf the circumference of the room for any holes in the walls. You can fix that by getting putty and plaster it on the wall and layer it out with a spatula. Afterwards, you need to and smoothen it down with a sand paper.
The next best thing is to use a primer paint to cover the old paint and hide the traces of the marks left by the putty once it's smoothen.
Then the best of all choosing the color paint. You want to use a color that blends all your accessories and furnitures compatibly.
It's really hard to say without seeing it. If you are trying to get the walls smooth, there are several options.
Depending on how deep the "pebbling" is, it's possible that a very thick primer will smooth the surface (this is a claim they make, I've never been impressed with it).
You could use a power sander to smooth the surface, but unless you know how to handle the sander it may cause more trouble than it's worth.
You could skim coat the entire surface of the wall with mud - drywall compound. Get a nice, wide putty knife and smooth it all over the surface. Then hand sand to the desired smoothness. This is time consuming, but not hard. Biggest issue is it makes a mess.
Then, of course, you just paint on top for even color.
HOWEVER, if you are just renting I'm not sure I'd go to the trouble - unless you're sick in the head like me and need everything perfect. I may suggest using one of those new texture paints. I've seen them at Home Depot. I think Ralph Lauren paints makes them. It can look like sand, water, whatever. The texture of this paint should detract from the imperfect texture of the wall.
OH - and if the wall isn't perfect - do not, do not, do not use dark colors or gloss paints. This will enhance, not hide, the imperfections.
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