7 Tips For Avoiding A Mess When Painting Your Dining Room in Arlington, VA
In the process of updating your home, you may come to your dining room and realize that it’s been entirely too long since it was painted, and decided that you might want to paint it.
The problem can sometimes arise if you are not careful and end up inadvertently causing a bit of a mess — and as it turns out, preventing a mess from happening is sometimes a lot easier than cleaning the mess after it has already happened.
Let’s look at seven tips for avoiding a mess when painting your dining room in Arlington, VA
1. Do Not Paint In Poor Lighting
This first item is something that should seem fairly obvious to most, yet it is not universally followed and people will often just paint in a room that is not nearly as well illuminated as it should be.
The problems with this kind of thing are numerous, perhaps numerous enough to merit its own article but suffice it to say that if you can’t see what you are doing well enough, you’re more likely to make a mistake and possibly even allow the paint to spill in areas where it does not belong.
Moreover, once the paint has gotten there you may not even be aware that it is there, and by the time you get around to it, cleaning it will be that much more difficult.
2. Stir Your Paint In A Bag
It should be well established that you should only stir paint and not ever try to mix it via shaking.
With that being the case, it’s important that you understand that when you’re stirring paint it’s possible that you will splash paint around and if the bucket is just sitting there on the floor that means it might get onto the floor.
One fairly easy solution to this is to put the paint can into a bag before you stir it and thus avoid the splash problem entirely.
3. Take Your Time When Painting
When people think about painting their dining room they might think about how long the process is going to take, which is perfectly understandable.
The problem arises when people try to get the painting process done more quickly by just painting more quickly… but this creates more problems than it resolves.
Specifically, it can easily make a mess — and it’s one that could have been avoided had you painted more carefully.
4. Cover Surfaces Not Being Painted
Though it does take a lot of time to cover the surfaces that aren’t being painted that are near to the wall, it is well worth it because of how easily paint can drip when you’re painting.
Having surfaces covered means that you’re going to be dealing with drop cloths that have paint on them rather than trying to get paint off of the floor, possibly.
5. Remove The Furniture If Possible
When you’re looking at painting your dining room, you’re going to want to try to remove as much of the furniture from the room as possible, depending on the size of the room.
The reason is that by removing it you are getting rid of the obstacles that might get in your way while painting and thus making it less likely that you’re going to make any sort of mess.
6. Do Not Paint Directly From Paint Cans
A mistake that a lot of people make in the name of getting their painting project done more quickly is to paint directly from their paint cans.
The reason that they will save time in not having to pour paint into paint trays, but this ultimately is a mistake — for painting from paint buckets means that you’re more likely to not get the paint on the brush or roller correctly and thus make a mess.
7. Clean Before You Paint
Lastly, one of the easiest ways you can prevent a mess during the dining room painting process is to make sure that you clean the area before you paint.
The reason that this is the case is that it is often the dust and grime that can be found on the surface of a dining room wall that will make for a bigger mess as the walls are being painted — if they are not first properly cleaned.
Image Painting is a professional full-service residential & commercial painting contractor based in Falls Church, Virginia. We have served the Washington DC metropolitan area since 2003. You can click below to request an estimate.
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