Easy Steps to Paint Your Home's Interior and Exterior

Painting your home can be a pain; I will show you with easy steps how to; "Take the Pain out of Painting". The most important step in painting is the prep work, in other words the surface has to be made sound so that the paint will bond. For wood that has a sheen it has to be sanded or dulled with a paint de-closer. A crucial phase is to find out what type of paint is on the surface that you are painting. For homes there are two types of paint; latex and oil. Latex is water based and oil is a solvent.

Step 1. Prior to purchasing the paint, determine what type of paint is on the surface that your are painting. Simply take a clean white rag, pour de-natured alcohol onto the rag and rub onto the surface; if the paint gum's up on the rag, this will determine that the paint is latex. If the paint does not come off, this determines that the paint is oil.

TIP: The number one mistake that home owners make, is to put latex paint over oil paint. This will cause the paint to peel off very easily. If you want to use latex over oil, you should prep the surface with oil based primer, then you can paint with latex.

Step 2. Before you prime and/or paint you first should patch all holes and cracks. This is a simple task as long as you use the correct products.

CAUTION: Homes built prior to 1970, may have been painted with lead paint. When scrapping or sanding these surface, use a dust mask or respirator.

Trim and Wood Repair: Interior and Exterior Surfaces:
Interior and Exterior wood surfaces; fill cracks with a caulking that is paint-able.
Interior woodwork, fill holes with painters putty or wood filler that can be sanded.
Exterior wood, fill larger holes with a spackling that dries hard. When the surface dries; sand the area and spot prime.

Dry Wall Repair; Interior Walls:

Sheetrock walls; with small holes, repair with drywall mud or spackling.
If holes are bigger than 1 inch, but less than 6 inches in diameter; purchase a square wire mesh that you cover the hole with, then apply dry wall mud.
This process will take some time: Apply a thin coat, let dry and repeat the process twice more, totaling 3-coats.