5 Mistakes to Avoid When Painting Your Home

Performing house repairs and maintenance has never been easier than it is today. Not only do we have access to professionals at the touch of a button, but we can also watch online tutorials to teach ourselves how to undertake basic tasks. However, house painting is almost an art form, and it’s easy to make costly and time-consuming mistakes. Here are some of the most common ones you might like to avoid making.

Not Hiring the Experts

If you’ve never painted the interior or exterior of a house before, consider hiring experts providing painting services in Calgary and further afield. You might believe you can paint your home to a high standard, but the reality can sometimes be quite different.

You might put yourself in danger by painting high walls on ladders, or you might make preparation errors that see you having to start again. Hiring the experts allows you to avoid such mistakes and frees up your time for less complicated home improvements.

Not Preparing the Walls Properly

You might think that paint can mask many flaws in your walls, but it can also highlight them. If your walls aren’t flat and smooth, you might be surprised by how many holes, cracks, nail pops, and imperfections a fresh coat of paint can show up.

At a minimum, you need to sand away flaking paint, repair holes, and correct other flaws that can contribute to a less-than-perfect finish. While time-consuming, paint preparation can improve your chances of having a finished product you can be proud of.

Skipping the Primer

While you will not need to apply primer if you’re simply freshening up your walls with the same-colored paint, primer can be necessary for many other situations. A primer product can make wall paint adhere to walls better, ensure it’s more durable, and stop darker colors from showing through your new paint. If you have any spackled holes or paint with a glossy finish, you’ll also need to use a primer to combat these issues.

Relying On Painters’ Tape

There’s no denying that painters’ tape is convenient. It can stop you from getting paint on surfaces you won’t be painting. However, it’s not a surefire way to create straight lines and picture-perfect finishes. It’s also time-consuming to put in place and remove.

Instead of using painters’ tape to ensure perfection around baseboards, corners, and ceilings, consider purchasing an angled paint brush. Small, angled brushes are designed to get into hard-to-reach crevices and can also help create a straight finish along edges.

You Haven’t Considered the Weather

It can be tempting to paint when you feel like it, but the weather can sometimes dictate the right time to start this critical job. Refrain from applying exterior paint in temperatures lower than 50 degrees. Otherwise, the paint might not dry properly. Any moisture in the air might also cause paint to bubble and peel.

If you’re unsure whether it’s a suitable time for interior or exterior painting, refer to your unique paint product’s instructions. Most manufacturers include information on temperature ranges for best results.

Paint products can be fickle, and there are no guarantees that you’ll achieve the desired results without prior painting knowledge. Now that you’re aware of some of the most common painting mistakes, you might be in a better position to avoid them.