
David Cunningham
Jan 21, 2025
Getting Pro Results From Your DIY Part 1
When beginning an interior painting project in your home, it is important to remember a key component that many miss and comes before even one drop of paint splashes in the bucket. That is, Confidence! Nervous painters make mistakes and sometimes can be involved in injuries related to ladder safety.
To promote confidence, my best advice is to remember that this is paint... the bottom line is the surface can be repainted, the drip can be cleaned and or treated (we will cover this later). take a breath and know that your gonna love the finished product and that you will save a lot of money doing it this way. With that said, let's get into the project at hand!
Tools
for the purpose of this article, we are going to make some assumptions. My first assumption is that we will be brushing and rolling using standard prep tools, and that the surfaces to be addressed are the walls in a specific room. With these guidelines in place for your project, you will need...
Depending on height, a short ladder around 4 ft or a step stool.
Drop cloths or floor coverings enough to create a perimeter around the surfaces
1.5 inch tape, the amount depends on the size of the area to be painted
2.5 inch or 3 inch paint brush
5 gallon bucket (or more, typically one clean bucket per color of walls to be rolled
5 gallon paint bucket grid
2 gallon paint bucket, empty and clean
9 inch frame
roller pole (to attach to the roller frame)
a 9 inch roller sleeve, typically a 1/2 nap is a nice density to use, but if the wall is rough, then a 3/4 nap thickness will be more efficient (to soak up the paint and apply it to the wall)
painting cloths that you can ruin, along with specific rags. t shirt rags are sold along with all of these tools
paint can opener
a puddy knife (1inch or 2 inch flex blade)
hammer
screw driver (Phillips and flat head)
lightweight Spackle
brush comb
a box of 10 ft plastic
a utility knife and or razor blade
depending on the severity of wall damage, you may need rattle can spray texture. The use of this will be covered in another part of this series of articles.
That covers the first part of our DIY articles on the basics of Interior and Exterior Painting. Look for Part 2 of this series to learn the prep procedure for professional painting results!