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11 tips on how to paint walls like a professional

A new coat of a paint is an easy way to instantly refresh your home, so here interiors expert Shannon Vos shares his top tips on how to paint walls like the pros

Painting your walls is an easy way to instantly refresh your home, whether you’re freshening up your white walls or are planning on adding a striking feature wall. To help you get it right, we asked interiors expert Shannon Vos to share his top tips on how to paint walls like a professional.

When it comes to paint, its not as simple a process as you might think. From choosing just the right shade of white, to ensuring that your paint finish is as smooth as it can be, there’s a number of little expert tricks of the trade that will make sure you’ll get it right the first time.

Of course, the best place to start is by choosing the right paint for your home – and we don’t just mean getting the shade and undertone right. Paints come in a variety of finishes from gloss to matt and its important to check whether you want an oil-based paint or a water-based one.
From there, it all comes down to painting technique. Here are Shannon’s top tips for getting it right…

How to test your paint colours

Testing your paint colours is the first thing you’ll want to do after picking up your paint. By swatching your chosen tin or tins, you’ll get a better idea for the labour required to freshen up your walls.

Dark colours might allow you to get away with fewer coats, whereas striking whites will generally require at least two coats for the best finish. Make sure you give your paint tin a thorough stir before you swatch them to ensure you get the most accurate look of the end result.

Don’t forget to also buy enough paint for your project! There’s nothing more frustrating than running out of paint halfway through a room. There’s a variety of clever online calculators like the ones at Dulux and British Paints to help you figure out how much you’ll need.

Top tips:

• Pick a spot for your test patches in an obscure place on the wall, below eye level. Traces of the tests shouldn’t show through when you paint over them, but this is just a precaution.

• Give the testing area a bit of a light sand and dust first, so that the paint can adhere.

• Painting two coats directly on the wall will give you the best sense of how your colours will read.

• Paint side by side, with a few inches in between to help see the differences, making them about the size of a A4 sheets of paper.

How to prepare walls for painting

There’s nothing worse than an uneven paint finish, and truth be told, most of the time that actually comes down to the quality of your canvas.

Depending on the condition of your walls, you will either need to wipe them down with sugar soap, or give the walls a light sand to ensure your paint adheres correctly. You’ll want to carefully read the instructions on your paint tin to figure out what preparation is best for the paint you have chosen.

Before you begin, don’t forget to lay down floor coverings to cover your flooring, and make sure you tape up electrical outlets, skirting boards and all the little details you’ll need to paint around to minimise the potential for mistakes.

Top tips:

• Use a polyfill wall-repair kit to fill any holes or cracks. Allow it to dry properly before giving it a sand and a dust.

• Make sure you give the entire walls a light sand so that the new paint can adhere to the old surface.

• When applying painter’s tape, use a putty knife to press down along the length of the tape to seal it and ensure a good bond.

How to achieve a smooth finish on your walls

After testing your paint colours and preparing your walls, the next step is to begin painting. While a painter’s toolkit is relatively simple, make sure you set up your workstation safely – especially if you’ll be using ladders to reach high corners and the ceiling.

Use your brushes to cut in around delicate decorative mouldings and features like cornices, architraves and skirting boards. From there, its time to bust out the roller.

Top tips:

• To load up your paintbrush for the “cutting-in” stage, cover roughly half the length of the bristles and wipe it to the side of the pot to remove excess.

• For smooth results after cutting in, make sure the brushed paint is still wet when you come to use the roller.

• Paint in sections of about two metres across and roll up and down the wall in narrow W motions for the best coverage.

• To “lay off”, make sure you don’t load the roller with more paint and, using almost no pressure, just lightly roll straight down from the top corner of a section to the bottom. Remove and repeat, moving across the section, each time slightly overlapping your last roll.

• Make sure you remove the painter’s tape while the paint is still wet, to avoid the paint peeling off and to ensure smooth edges.

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