Useful Tips for Painting the Interior of Your House

Painting your house can be one of the most frustrating experiences to come your way as a homeowner. You are faced with the potential for picking a color that looked so right in the store, but feels so wrong in your house. You may buy too much or too little paint to get the job done right. And don't let's even get started on streaking and drip marks. Embarking upon the odyssey that is painting your home means collecting as many tips and pieces of advice as you can. Here are some very useful and effective hints and secrets that will make your house painting project go smoothly.

Paint Gun Use
Properly utilized, a spray paint gun can make the job of painting an entire room go significantly faster. There is a secret trick to making spray painting more efficient. Make sure that the paint gun is kept at the same length from the surface being painted throughout the process. You can make this tip easier on yourself by taping a yardstick to the spray gun that is exactly an inch shorter of the desired spot you want to be from the surface you are painting.

It's the Humidity, Stupid!
Indoor painting must deal with humidity as much as outdoor painting. The good news is that you can control the indoor humidity much more felicitously than you can the outdoor humidity. Make sure the indoor humidity is mild to make sure that the paint goes on smoothly evenly. Open a window or draft an exhaust fan into action to lower high humidity. Use a humidifier if there isn't enough moisture inside the room.

Preparation
Half the battle of making an indoor painting job go easy is thorough preparation. Among the things you should before starting a house painting project: kill all the surface mildew, smooth uneven surfaces with sanding or stripping of old paint, patch up holes and cracks in wood, stucco and metal, caulk troublesome spots and make good use of primer if necessary.

Painting Paper Products
If the painting job at hand is a decorative one involving the painting of paper products like cheap paper lampshades, go with a can of spray paint. Be sure that your spray covers the paper surface evenly and do so repeatedly to ensure an even coverage.

Making Stencils
Don't despair if you can find the exact stenciling pattern you desire. It is ridiculously easy to make a stencil pattern from anything you can imagine. Just find an image of the pattern you want stenciled onto your floors, walls or ceiling and print it up. Place a photocopy of the image under a sheet of clear stencil film and use a market to trace the edges of the image. Cut out the shapes using a craft's knife. For best results, place the image on a cutting mat when you cut it out.

Double Rolling
Double rolling is a painting process in which you use a paint roller with two separate roller attachments. Dip on roller into one color of paint and the other into another color to create a more dimensional texture. Double rolling is most effectively used for painting a wall that you plan on making into the focal point of a room. The key to using the double rolling technique is to choose colors that blend together instead of contrasting with each other.

Colorwashing
Colorwashing is a decorative painting technique used in house painting projects to provide a greater feeling of depth to the wall. Start colorwashing with a base coat and then add in glaze. Use a sponge or rag to rub the paint/glaze mixture in a circular or figure-8 motion. Colorwashing is a painting technique that can successfully be applied to any room in the house, but it is at its most effective when you use it on a wall that is in less than perfect shape. The textured result of colorwashing is an ideal way to decoratively masquerade flaws and blemishes on the wall.

Toothpaste Belongs in Your Mouth
Resist the temptation to fix cracks and holes in the wall before painting by applying toothpaste to the crevice. The fact is that toothpaste will break down over time and that time period is not a great one. If you really want your wall painting project to come off looking good, avoid using toothpaste and stick with surfacing compound.