Use These 7 Tips to Paint Your Home Like a Pro

Whether you just purchased your home, you’re preparing to sell your home, or you’re just ready for a refresh, painting your rooms a new color can breathe new life into your walls.

As the old saying goes, failing to prepare is preparing to fail. The semi-permanence of wall paint can cause damage and stress if you decide to paint your home without a plan.

Read on to get professional-level tips to ensure your painting project goes off without a hitch.

The Top 7 Tips to Paint Your Home Like a Pro

You already know to remove all the furniture and lay down the drop cloth to catch any stray drips or splashes. But here’s a selection of the best tips for professional-level painting — all DIY:

#1. Swatch Plenty and Swatch Wisely

Take advantage of swatches from your local paint supplier, like a hardware store. Choose your color to start, then select multiple colors from the same family. You’ll also want to select your paint finish.

Take these swatches home, tape them to your wall, and take a look at them as the light fluctuates throughout the day. If you’re painting a windowless room, see how the swatches hold up with the lighting you have in the room.

Once you’ve narrowed down your top colors, you can ask the same store for samples of the paint, and paint small patches on a designated wall to get a real feel of the paint’s texture, how it looks in different lighting, and how its finish looks on the texture of the wall.

The supplier can also help you determine how much paint you’ll need to buy based on the size of the room being painted.

Pro Tip: Be wary of trends. What looks good online may not translate to your unique home. Trendy colors are just that — trendy. Before you dive in and paint your home, sure you choose a color you love that also aligns with your decor and home features, like carpeting and flooring or light fixtures.

#2. Prepare Your Walls

Now that you’ve found the perfect color for the room you’re painting, you want to prepare your walls to be painted.

Start with a Clean Canvas

You’ll want to patch up any holes, sand away any rough texture, and wash your walls. This will give you a clean canvas and a smooth surface to start with.

Get Painter’s Tape-Ready

Next, make sure you wipe down and clean the baseboards. Clearing dust and grime ensures they’re ready for the painter’s tape to adhere properly.

Remove Light Switch and Outlet Covers

You should also take the time to unscrew and safely store light switch and outlet covers out of the room being painted. Removing these covers will prevent any stray splatters, drips, or brush strokes from the covers.

In addition to preventing this less-than-professional sight, it’s also a good practice to remove these covers so you don’t have droplet-sized swatches of old paint if you decide to paint the room another color in the future.

#3. Get Your Toolkit Ready

Now that your walls are prepped and ready for painting, you’ll want to assemble your toolkit.

Your painting kit should consist of:

• Drop cloths to prevent spills from hitting your floors
• Blue painter’s tape for clean edges
• A paint roller to work quicker by covering more surface area of your walls
• A paint brush to get into the nooks and crannies of the room and go over fine edges and details
• A metal paint tray where you’ll pour in your paint and refill as you go
• Paint primer to get your walls ready for the paint to adhere
  

You can even buy painting kits already loaded with the supplies you need to paint your home like a pro.

Tip: If you’re painting multiple colors in one room, like an accent wall, make sure to equip your paint pro stash with spare roller covers.

#4. Use Plenty of Painter’s Tape

Pull the painter’s tape out of your toolkit and start using it liberally. This is, arguably, the most important step besides putting down drop cloths.

Now that your walls are clean and smoothed, use the painter’s tape to create boundaries for painting sharp, clean lines that look like they came from a pro. This is the number one way to prevent messy mistakes and stray brushstrokes.

No need to pull out one long row of tape; breaking pieces of tape into smaller lengths and overlapping them works just as well.

#5. Prime Your Walls

Before you start painting, you’ll want to ensure you apply paint primer to your walls. You may be wondering, is primer really necessary? Absolutely.

Paint primer helps your new paint shine by:

• Covering the old paint color and imperfections you sealed and sanded over
• Helping to seal the wall’s surface to improve paint adhesion
• Allowing the color of the paint to show its most accurate vibrancy
• Preventing paint peeling for a long-lasting result
• Creating a smooth base for paint application, so you spend less time applying multiple coats
  

For your paint’s color to truly shine through and ensure the hard work you put in to paint your home is high-quality and long-lasting, don’t skip this step.

#6. Paint Like a Pro

Your walls are ready, your toolkit is prepped, and the paint can is popped open and poured into the tray.

You’re now ready to paint your home the pro way.

Before you jump in, make sure to read the directions of the paint you’re using to see the dry time between coats before you get started.

Once you have this info, get started by loading up your roller brush to saturate it with paint. Then, paint in a vertical motion starting from the top of the wall and working your way to the bottom. This helps to prevent drips.

You’ll want to work at a steady pace to prevent uneven drying, which can lead to obvious edges or patchy results.

Allow undisturbed dry time based on the paint manufacturer’s directions, and then apply a second coat.

#7. Remove the Tape and Tidy Any Imperfections

After the second coat is applied, and ample drying time has passed, you’re ready to remove the painter’s tape and assess any missed spots.

This is where the paintbrush in your toolkit comes in handy: use it to go over these gaps slowly and steadily for the completion of your professional-level paint job.

Your paint project is complete!

You’re Ready to Paint Your Home Like a Pro

Now that you’re equipped with the top tips for pro-level painting, you’re ready to dive into your latest project. If you’re excited and ready to get more ideas for home improvement, check out our blog on RealEstateAgents.com.