Feedgy - Seattle Painting - The Best Tips and Advice And Everything About House Painting From The Best Painters This Side Of Seattle

Painting your homes interior or exterior walls can become a daunting but rewarding task for the right type of person. What many people do not realize; however, is that proper surface preparation is the most critical aspect of both Exterior and Interior painting. Skimping on the cleaning and priming of your interior walls and sufficient paint removal on your exterior wood surfaces will cause bigger problems then you started with down the road. If the wall preparation or siding preparation is not done up properly, painting becomes absolutely worthless. This is why it is imperative to ensure that the Surface that needs to be painted has a good surface for the primer or paint to bond to. This article will explain in brief how to do proper surface preparation.

You may have already purchased your paint and primer, but you will need a few more things to start off . The first item that you will need for an interior wall project is a damp sponge and a small amount of TSP. Wiping your surface down is important to ensure a dirt free and oil free surface. Needless to say, primer or paint will not bond properly to an oily dirty surface. If the wall surface is flat and lightly textured, priming is probably unnecessary. If you have a smooth wall that has some sheen (eggshell or satin) prime the walls with a good acrylic bonding primer first and have it tinted towards the final color. Sand the surface imperfections down and any Spackle filled holes with a sheet of sand paper (180-220 grit). Buy the best paint you can afford like Aura from Benjamin Moore. They have a matte finish that is durable and covers like a dream. You can fill the holes with a lite Spackle unless they are larger than a dime then go with a heavy duty vinyl compound. Use the sand paper to smooth out any bumps, edges, cuts or dents that may be present on the wall. You may not be able to see these inaccuracies with the naked eye and hence you will need a 100W bulb held against the wall. The light from the bulb will help you identify any unevenness on the wall. If your walls required some heavy duty patching compound on larger holes or cracks make sure to prime the compound first. Simply painting over the compound will leave a sheen difference in that area when the light hits it just right.

Painting your homes exterior trim and siding can become a daunting task. Lead paint on older homes needs to be handled with care..especially around kids under 7. See above link to EPA’s new rules regarding the safe removal requirements. If you have old original siding or clapboards and have failed coatings you will need to get aggressive and remove way more of the coatings then you think. If 20% of the existing paint looks bad you will need to remove about 50-60 percent of the existing layers of paint down to the wood. This means weeks of work on the average 2 story house. If you cover up the old loosely adhered coatings (even though those areas might not look too bad) with an acrylic product- within a year…maybe 2, you will have even bigger trouble because the new coats will literally pull the old stiff coatings off the substrate. This becomes a vicious cycle and touch-up nightmare. The siding will need to be bare, dry and properly abraded with 80 grit sandpaper before a penetrating oil primer is applied by brush. Then brush on a nice thick coat of acrylic primer tinted towards the final color and spray 2 coats of premium acrylic and enjoy you new paint job for years to come.