Many people have had bad experiences when painting things around their home and the reason for that is most people haven’t gone through professional training and many years of experience to gather the knowledge necessary to do things exactly perfect. And even if you are a professional you are bound to make lots of mistakes because thats just the way life is. The primary goal of any job should be to improve what you have and do it in a way that you can be proud of. Things don’t have to be perfect to be great and you should never doubt yourself in a way that makes you think twice about trying to tackle a job on your own.
With that in mind lets look at how a professional painter would approach painting a large room with a variety of different moldings, fixed objects and other items that need to be protected from overspray and paint drips.
Professionals Limit Their Use Of Tape While Painting
A professional that is painting a room will not go around and tape off every edge that might get paint on it. The fact is it is just too time consuming and professional painter’s tape and masking paper is pretty expensive. You should follow this method when doing your own work.
Some of the areas that might get taped off include:
Electrical Outlets after the cover has been removed to reduce dust coming out of the outlet and embedding in the paint. Its a good idea to remove all of your switch and outlet covers before you begin because you want to paint behind them. If you don’t and then change the covers later you might end up with a gap. You also don’t want the paint to glue them to the wall. Remove the cover and then use some 2 inch wide painters tape to cover the outlet opening.
Door Hinges and Door Knobs are another place you may want to tape off while painting. Lets face it removing all of the hardware might be nice if you are doing some type of custom detailed paint job like trying to make a hollow core door look like real wood but again its about time vs effort. Removing the door if you are painting out the entire jam might be appropriate and then painting the door off the jam becomes a good idea too. If you are painting the room and not the door or jams or moldings you can normally get away with a painter’s mask which we will cover ahead.
Expensive and Unremovable Objects. If you are painting in a kitchen and you can’t move some of the items it is probably a great idea to mask them off with painters tape and a thin film plastic painters tarp. A 2 mil tarp would be fine however they do have special surface painters plastic that will hold on to any drips and reduce the mess. Plastic is the best for large items like your cabinets and countertops and for the floor.
Floors and Carpet are another area that may be masked off an again here you would use plastic with held against the baseboard molding with painters tape and then use a canvas tarp in the center of the room over plastic. You can do without the canvas tarp as they can be expensive but wet paint on plastic can be a nightmare so wear plastic booties over your shoes and remove them before you leave the room you are painting.
Things That Professional Painters Normally Don’t Tape
Normally a professional painter will not tape off moldings around doors, windows, baseboards and other details because it is much easier to use a Painter’s Mask to protect the area while cutting in with a brush around the molding and then if there are any drips they can be removed quickly with a moist towel.
You would never see a painter trying to tape off all of the muntins on a window they would simply paint the muntins as accurately as they could and let them dry and come back with a single edge razor blade and scrape off any overage.
A hand held painter’s masking tool allows the painter to protect moldings and quickly paint around them. Often since they are easily available a stainless steel 12 inch drywall trawl is used. You should never use aluminum because aluminum will transfer black marks onto your work. A smaller trawl can be used around details.
Never Let Painter’s Tape Set Overnight
One very important thing that you might not consider is removal and cleanup of your tape. You should never allow even low tack painters tape to sit on your protected surfaces overnight. This time would be much less if you are working outdoors. The problem you will have is the adhesive and paint edge will dry and then you will need to cut the tape free. This often leads to disaster.
The best practice when using tape is to remove it within an hour of completing your paint and never allow it to sit in place overnight.
When removing the tape you should peal it back and away from the surface you just painted on an angle. This will reduce your chance of damaging the fresh paint. If the tape does come in contact with a molding or object and transfers a bit of paint you can wipe it off with a towel but you can not as easily repair a damaged painted wall.
Final Note
Painting is a difficult job and many people do not take it seriously. You must consider that professionals get paid good money and to reach that wage it takes training and experience. If you are painting your first wall don’t expect it to be perfect. Don’t expect to get away without paint all over you and on everything else. But most of all don’t be scared about it.
Doing the work yourself allows you to make decisions that make your house your home. It also gets you ready for the bigger jobs.