If you want to know how to paint a wall, you must first know how to properly lay the groundwork so that you can paint the wall the right way. After comes the actual painting of the wall. Painting a wall involves a lot of work in just setting up the wall for painting. Without a correct set up, the wall’s paint job will not look good. With your set up in place is when you can begin the wall painting process. You should first start with a good quality drywall primer, then paint.
Painting a Wall Summary
- Prep the wall
- Use a quality primer for the wall
- Paint the wall
Setting up a Wall for Painting
Setting up a room wall for painting (performing the prep work for painting a wall involves removing obstacles, protecting areas from paint, cleaning the wall, wall drywall repair, fixing baseboards, fixing trim, sanding, and one final cleaning. To begin the groundwork work for painting the wall, you need to first remove as much stuff as you can:
- remove any decorations from the wall
- remove the furniture from near the wall or use plastic furniture coverings
- remove the wall’s outlet and light switch covers
After the obstacles are out of your way, protect the areas around the wall you don’t want to get any paint on such as window frames and carpet. Then you can give the wall a cleaning job. When your wall is clean, you can repair small and large damaged areas:
- Fix holes on the wall
- Fix raised areas on the wall (e.g., old paint drips)
Furthermore, you will want to also repair the trim and baseboards along the wall. You should clean the trim and baseboards before you start your repairs. When all of this is done, you can give the wall a finial sanding. With the wall sanded, give it a final cleaning. The last step will be to tape off the repaired baseboards and trim. Now your wall is properly set up in order to get an
expert paint job.
Removing stuff out of your way will be a good first easy step in setting up a wall for painting. This begins with furniture and decorations along with similar items on or near the wall. Before removing the wall’s electrical coverings such as covers for light switches and outlets, disconnect the electrical system for the specific wall you will be painting in. Now that the electrical areas are safe, you can cover them with tape.
- Good professional painter’s tape will stick and not leave any residue.
To protect the floors near the wall, tape their edges down along the wall/ baseboards. Pay extra attention to baseboards that are on carpet. Then you can cover the entire floor near the wall with a protective material. Along with taping the edge of the floor, you can put tape on the room’s ceiling on the edge of the wall.
With everything well protected, you can begin cleaning wall/ drywall. First, vacuum the edges and corners of the wall. Your wall is most likely drywall. Furthermore, drywall is sensitive, so using a vacuum is a great way to avoid damaging the wall when cleaning it. After the edges are cleaned, you can use a good quality dry dusting cloth to wipe down the wall and trim.
The next step after cleaning the wall will be repairing drywall damage on the wall. You can get a repair kit to fix small holes. The kit should include the tools you need with a patching material. For larger damage on the wall, you will use drywall mud. For fixing raised areas, use a specific scraping tool to start. After you scrape it down, use a coarse piece of sandpaper to smooth it as much as possible. Get the raised areas as flush as possible.
You need to repair the wall before painting; however, you should also repair the trim and baseboards that are most likely running along the wall. The most common repair you will probably need to do is fill gaps between the trim and wall. You can use caulking for doing this repair. Caulk the gaps and then use a soft 90-degree object to scrap off the excess caulking. You can also use a hard 90-degree object such as metal and just cover it with a cloth to make it soft.
Now that your wall’s drywall is fixed, give the wall a finishing sanding job. A very fine grit sandpaper works well for this. Sanding creates particles, so be sure to use proper protections:
- Use quality safety goggles
- Use a quality n95 mask
To get a nice even sanding on the wall, use a circular motion.
After the finishing sanding is complete on the wall, use a very damp cloth to clean the debris off the drywall. Water and drywall don’t mix well, so the less damp your cloth is the better. When you are done with the damp cloth, finish the job on the wall with a new completely dry cloth. Now your wall is fully prepared for paining, after it is dried off of course.
But before you paint the wall, you will need to tape off the baseboards and trim around the wall. This needs to happen after the repairs you did are dried and set. You’ll be painting the wall’s trim after you complete painting the wall, this is way they need to be taped off.
With all this in place, your wall is ready to be painted. You will have set up the wall for painting by removing obstacles, protecting areas from paint, cleaning the wall, drywall repair, fixing baseboards, fixing trim, sanding, and the one final cleaning. An awesome paint job for your wall can only happen if the set-up work is done perfectly and there is a lot of set-up work that needs to happen. If the amount of set-up work overwhelms you or you really want the best paint job possible you should consult a painting professional.
Painting the Wall
When you are done the set-up work is when you can begin painting the wall. This will involve using a primer, then paint. A good quality primer will make the wall’s paint job look cleaner. Your first painting step should be using a brush for edges, then a roller for the large areas of the wall (the middle of the
wall).
A proper primer is a great start to your wall’s paint job. To get an even better paint job for the wall, you can use a primer + sealer. A sealer has many properties. Two important sealer properties are its ability to go over different types of wall surface areas and make them even:
- Different areas could be un-damaged drywall and the repaired areas.
The second property is that a good sealer will make your paint bond strongly to the wall. To begin the primer process, use a brush to get the primer on the corners and edges and a roller for the middle of the wall. Then wait for the primer to dry and set.
Now that the wall has a coat of primer you can begin painting the wall. Make sure your brushes and paint rollers are clean and that they do not have dried paint on them. Before you get to the brush work, mix the paint well to get an even colour. For painting the edges of the wall, use a brush and put a little paint on the tip. This works for the primer also. After you have painted the edges and corners with a brush, use a roller for the large surface area which will be the middle of the wall. As with the paint brush, don’t put too much paint on the roller. Let your wall’s paint job dry and then give the wall a second coat. Now you know how to paint a wall. As mentioned before, for the best paint job possible, using a painting professional is always a great option.