Preparing Your Surfaces: 7 Essential Steps for Ultimate House Painting Success

April 25, 2024

Painting your home’s interior requires some meticulous attention to detail. If you’re endeavouring to brave this process yourself, we’ve consulted our painting experts for the 7 important steps you need to consider when preparing walls for painting. Here’s how the experts do it. 

Step 1: Prepare the Room

It might sound obvious, but it’s one that those who fail to adequately prepare frequently regret – keeping the paint off the furniture! Prevention is better than cure, so get all of the furniture out of the room. Carefully removing all furniture will save you a lot of heartbreak later on. Chairs, tables, couches and lamps should be taken out of the room so that you have the space to manoeuvre without bumping into anything or causing a dreaded paint spill. This also allows you to freely spread tarp later on, without having to cover expensive furniture items. 

Step 2: Inspect for Repairs

Your walls may not quite be ready for a fresh coat of paint. Cracks and chips in the plaster will only come back to haunt you later on. Dampness and mould can also be a problem, one that should be fixed immediately as part of the process for preparing your walls for painting. Professional paint companies always inspect surfaces thoroughly before moving forward with interior painting, otherwise you’re likely to end up with an uneven finish or worse, a paint job that needs redoing much earlier.

Step 3: Use the Right Tools for Wall Preparation

Fixing these little repairs requires the right tools and products. Fixing chips in plaster can be done easily if you know how. Cracks, mould, and damp on the other hand require a bit more know-how. If you notice any of these issues on your walls, you may need to delay your house painting until they’re sorted out. Many professional paint companies will have the in-house skills to remedy such flaws, or will be able to point you in the right direction of a good plasterer.

Step 4: Protect Areas that are Not Being Painted

Before placing down your tarp, remember to cover all areas that you don’t want to paint. Paint will also splash occasionally, and accidents like a dropped roller or tipped over paint can happen. Use professional painting tape to cover skirtings, dado-rails, and ceiling cornices. If you’re painting near fixtures, be sure to cover these too. 

Step 5: Remove All Light & Plug Wall Plates

Wall plates for light switches and plug points should be removed. Don’t attempt to paint around these—we don’t even do that! Keep all screws in a safe place to make sure you can reattach them later. Remember to wait at least a day after painting before screwing them back onto your wall to avoid chipping or smudging the paint.

Step 6: Consider Your Wall Corners

Where two adjoining walls are being painted different colours, always be sure to use professional cornering tape. Expert house painters are really good at cutting off straight coloured lines on the corners, but many wall corners are rounded, making it necessary to use cornering tape. 

Apply the tape carefully in a perpendicular fashion and remove it with a sharp knife when painting is done. Be careful not to damage the dried paint layer when removing the tape, or you may have to touch up again later. 

A-professional-painter-from-Prime-Building-Painters-working-around-taped-window-edges-during-interior-painting-in-Brisbane

Step 7: Sand Your Walls

To ensure the best paint-to-wall absorption, sanding the existing paint off your walls is recommended. Paint doesn’t stick very well if it’s painted directly over another layer, making this an important step in preparing walls for painting. For this process you’ll need the right grade of sandpaper, a mask to prevent breathing in dust particles, and a good broom or vacuum to clean up before you begin painting. 

Start the House Painting Process

Once all these steps are complete, you can safely paint your walls without fear of ending up with a tacky or uneven finish. While it can seem like a tedious process that many are prepared to skip, the better you prepare your surfaces, the nicer finish you’ll have when you’re done. Just be sure to clean up any and all dust particles so that these don’t float around and stick to your wet paint layers. 

Final Thoughts

There’s much to do before you dip that roller into your paint, so be sure you have everything properly prepared from the get-go. If all this seems a bit much to handle, just take it one step at a time and be meticulous and steady when it comes to house painting. Or if you’d rather avoid the hassle, simply call a team of experts like Prime Building Painters to handle this for you, since accuracy is crucial for landing on a great finish.