Prepping a room before Painting part 3

Trim Preparations

Now we’re going to deal with any areas in the room that need to be re-caulked and what you’ll see usually is that caulking needs to be touched up around where the baseboard meets the wall or around window trim, caulk is the best solution for sealing this gap and making everything look clean. So you’ll need to open a tube of caulking when you are opening up a tube of caulk take the tip and put it right into the spout Cutters (on the back of the caulking gun) going in about a 45-degree angle and squeeze the handles. Depending on how quickly you want to get to painting will change what caulk you want to use I prefer using fast dry paintable caulk because it’s ready in 15 minutes. After, load the caulking gun with the caulk and drag and squeeze the gun along with the seem to be sure to drag and squeeze at an even pace to avoid future problems or messes. It’s actually better for your walls to meet your baseboard at a 90-degree angle so Instead of just running your finger along it like common practice creates a burrow, I suggest you use your five in one tool and use the small square on the front of the blade (opposite of the pointy side) take your damp rag and you’ll put it in one layer over it hold it nice and tight and drag that along starting in the corner and run it along the edge of the baseboard and it creates a really nice clean square 90-degrees angle for you. This makes it easier to paint in the future as well.

Time To Sand

  Once the wall repairs are completely dry, now it’s time to move on to sanding and this time you should be using 220 grit sandpaper for a really nice smooth finish perfect for paint. If there is an excessive amount, go safety first and use eye protection and respiratory mask so that you don’t breathe in any of the dust and my eyes are protected. I recommend sanding in a circular motion and that will feather out the imperfection and give you the smoothest finish, don’t be surprised if you get a little dusty. okay so your walls are spackled and sanded and now we need to do a bit more cleanup and I promise you’re almost done prepping. Grab a damp rag and you’re going to use your damp rag along your baseboards and remove some of the Spackle dust that is come down onto the baseboard then use a dry rag this is really great for the drywall dust on walls itself and make sure you check dust in corners. Finally, go around the room and remove all of my outlet and switch plate covers, it is not worth painting around, it hardly ever look clean and perfect and thinking about next time around if you ever do need to take this off you might actually ruin your paint job so it’s a very quick and easy to remove it using a flat head screwdriver. Quick tip screw the screws back in the holes without the wall plate so you don’t lose the screws then take a small piece of my painter’s tape and just cover up your outlet so that you’re sure not to get paint on those as well. in this room were not painting the ceiling but we are painting the walls in the trim and we’re going to start out with the wall this is kind of hotly debated in the painting world what do you paint first trim the walls trim walls everyone has an opinion on it and you can make a good case either way over an.

Starting To Paint

Finally were ready for paint, if your not doing your ceiling (which we recommend starting with) for your average homeowner i recommend that you start with the wall that way if you have any overspray or anything on your trim its kind of the last thing you do and it really cleans up the whole job and looks great so since your painting the walls first your next step is taping off the baseboard and trim and to do that grab 2inch painter’s tape and just start back in the corner and I’m lining line it up with the top of the trim and then peel and press your tape along the whole piece and then press a putty knife square against the tape at the very end and rip the tape there. It’s best to use one long piece this makes it so that you have a perfectly seamless Longline instead of kind of starting and stopping which creates inconsistencies. In addition to taping off your baseboard take the time for taping off all the window and door casing for the exact same reason that you don’t want to get any paint on them around these.

 Well, friends, you are ready to paint your properly prepared took your time and protected all of your surfaces and prepared your walls and trim. Now its time to choose the right paint! We’ll have different articles to help you with that. Good luck with your project!