Interior painting: seven secrets to smooth walls
If you are painting the interior walls of your own home, you may want to know what the secret is to the smooth-looking finish that the pros achieve. Well, there isn’t just one secret; there are many! Read on to learn seven of the most important secrets to achieving a smooth finish with interior painting.
Seven interior painting secrets
1. Sand away any flaws
It is important to start with a completely smooth surface if you want to achieve a smooth finish painting walls. Some painters might tell you that a more accurate description of their job is ‘sander’, because they spend a huge amount of time pushing sandpaper.
Use fine grain sandpaper on a sanding pole to rub the walls down from the skirting board up to the ceiling. Then sand horizontally along the line of the skirting and the ceiling. Be sure not to apply too much pressure on the pole, because the head may flip over and do some damage to the wall. When sanding woodwork before painting it, use a sanding sponge to get into any crevices you encounter. Using a sanding machine will speed things up and they’re very handy to have around the home. Purchase one from Tech-Tool 2000.
2. Use tinted primer
Before applying coats when interior painting, a pro will fill any holes and cracks they encounter with joint compound. Painting directly over this compound can result in it absorbing the moisture from the paint, leaving a dull, flat finish. These little spots look significantly different to the rest of the wall but can be avoided by priming the walls before applying any paint.
Instead of applying white primer, you can have it tinted grey or a colour that’s close to the paint you intend to use. Tinted primer is more effective at covering the existing wall colour than the plain version, so your finishing coat should look brighter and you may need to apply fewer coats. This is particularly the case with colours like orange or red, which could otherwise require three or more coats.
3. Use paint extender to eliminate brush and lap marks
The secret to achieving a finish that isn’t spoilt by brush and lap marks is to mix a paint extender (or paint conditioner) into the paint. The results of this are two-fold. First, it slows the paint’s drying time, affording you a bigger window to overlap your just-painted sections without causing the unattractive lap marks that appear when you go over dried paint. Second, paint extender will level out the paint, so those brush stroke marks are essentially taken out of the equation.
4. “Box” your paint for consistent colour
Two different paint cans of the same colour paint can actually vary in colour. If you open a new can halfway through a wall, that variation can be painfully obvious. Pros mix their cans into a large paint bucket before starting interior painting jobs (this process is known as “boxing”). This way, the paint is consistent at all times.
6. Use degreaser to clean dirty walls
Paint struggles to bond with greasy surfaces, like on kitchen walls above the hob. If you use a quality degreaser to clean greasy or grimy surfaces, it will cut through virtually any extent of troublesome grease and leave you with a surface that’s better prepared for good paint adhesion.
7. Start with a loaded brush
The pros will load the lower 4cm of a brush with paint before tapping each of the sides against the rim of their container in order to remove the heavy drips. This process is preferable to the “load and dump” approach most interior painting amateurs take, where they scrape the brush along the inside of the container and wipe off most of the paint. Dunking your brush in paint is pointless if you then simply wipe it all off again!
Here at Star Paint, you can find a range of quality paints in a wide palette of colours perfect for painting any interior wall. Contact us today.
