About a year ago, I decided to paint my master bedroom. I have lived in my house for about five years, but I had never got around to painting any of the rooms. While my home was under construction I had so much fun daydreaming about what rooms I would paint what colors and where I would place decorations. Well, when it came down to it, I ended up not having time to paint my home before I moved into it. So, I put the painting off until later. I think this happens more often than not to new home owners.
But, once the furniture is in, it really isn’t that hard to paint. We moved all the furniture to the center of the room and covered it with a couple of old sheets. We then covered that with plastic sheeting. We also covered the floor with plastic sheeting and used painter’s tape to affix the sheeting to the floor. We covered all of the trim, baseboards and window sills with painter’s tape. I had lots of fun with the painter’s tape because it comes in three different colors, blue, purple and green. It was very fun! We covered the windows and the doorways with the plastic sheeting also.
We bought a few gallons of paint and loaded up the roller brushes and went at it! It only took us a total of about 3 hours for the first coat and the same for the second. We did let the paint dry for a couple of days between coats, but I don’t think you need to wait that long between coats. I am including a few links below for those of you who want more precise instructions for painting a room. Or you can just wing it like we did!
If you are worried about covering up paint samples that you tried out when you make your final choice you can use this nifty tool:
http://mysmallwall.com/index.php
TLC has an amazing set of instructions plus lots of information on types of paint brushes and how to use them. These instructions entitled “How to Paint a Room” are perfect for those of us who like to use the phrase “you’re not doing it right!”
Benjamin Moore’s website has nifty tools that let you upload pictures of your room and virtually paint it! Plus they teach you color basics. Thanks Benjamin Moore!
For some reason that I still don’t understand, my husband insisted that we needed to buy 5 GALLONS of paint for just one room. Something about touchups and paint matching, blah blah. Anyway, if you want to be a bit more precise with your paint buying, since it can get expensive, here’s a handy estimator.
Just in case your walls have a few dings in them, you will need to repair them before you paint over it. Or not. It’s up to you, but here’s how.
Ok, so you were in a hurry and you painted really fast and now you see some problems. You don’t have to live with them. Here’s how to fix them.
Of course Martha Stewart has instructions too!
If you want to get all Fancy here is a great website on Decorative Painting.
Have fun and send us some photos of your painting project!