Congratulations, you’re a new home owner! Now the exciting part begins – decorating.
But if this is your first home and you’re a paint novice, this guide will tell you about the tools and equipment you need to start and explain a bit about the types of paint available to you.
Home Interior blogger, Antonia Ludden shares her tips for painting your first home.
Essential Equipment
Overalls & Dust Sheets
Painting is a messy job, so you need to protect your clothing and any items you don’t want to get paint on. Make sure you have some overalls or old comfy clothes to wear that you don’t mind getting ruined. Disposable gloves are great to protect your hands.
Plastic or fabric dust sheets can be placed over your floor, fireplace and furniture to save surfaces from spills and splatters.
Scraper
A tool with a flat metal area that’s really handing for chipping off old blobs of paint, lumpy plaster and for stripping wallpaper.
Decorators Caulk & Gun
This stuff is amazing for filling in gaps around door frames and skirting boards, giving a smooth, gap free and professional finish.
Paint Brushes, Roller & Tray
Get equipped with a range of different sized brushes including an angled brush for ‘cutting in’ (that’s using a paint brush to paint areas that are too tight for rollers or need careful attention e.g. the ceiling line, corners, skirting boards etc). Better quality brushes are a bit more expensive, but well worth it to avoid picking stray bristles out of your fresh paintwork. A roller gives better and quicker coverage than a brush for large areas, try using them to emulsion your walls and some come with an extendable handle so you can reach high up. (A stepladder is also handy!)
Masking Tape
This is great stuff, especially the green Frog Tape – you can tape off the bits you don’t want to get paint on e.g. glass panes in doors, skirting boards and it’s also ideal where you need a sharp edge between two different paint colours on a wall.
Sandpaper, Sanding Block, Dust Mask
Sanding is necessary on both brand-new bare woodwork and previously painted. You don’t have to take the paint right back to the wood, but just rough it up a bit to give the paint a ‘key’ (something to adhere to). If you are sanding, you should wear a mask so as not to breathe in the fine dust.
White Spirit
This is for cleaning off oil-based paints from brushes (like gloss), where water and soap won’t clean them. Always read the back of your paint tin to see how to clean your brushes.
Sugar Soap
A great cleaner for getting walls and woodwork properly ‘de-greased’ before you start decorating.
Knowing which Paint to Use
Paint formulations have changed over recent years as some were not good for the environment – mainly strong-smelling oil based gloss paints that took forever to dry, but were hard wearing.
These days most are water or solvent based. Oil paints do exist, you can look at eco-friendly versions made with vegetable oils (such as Little Greene).
Choosing the right paint for the job is essential, so here’s a quick rundown of what to use and where:
For woodwork & metal
Satin, soft sheen and eggshell are all good choices for wooden architrave, skirting boards and radiators as an alternative to traditional gloss paint. These paint types are all relatively hardwearing with a smooth finish that offers a slight sheen, rather than being totally flat.
Gloss finishes are still available if you like a shiny finish, but these too tend to be solvent or water based nowadays which makes them easier to clean and not as strong-smelling. They provide a smooth, durable and easy to clean surface.
For wood surfaces, you tend to need a primer or undercoat which gives a basecoat for the topcoat to adhere to.
For walls and ceilings
Matt – a matt emulsion is a good choice for imperfect walls and ceilings as it has a flat, non-reflective surface. It tends not to be as durable as a satin or soft sheen paint, however you can get ‘scrub-able’ matt paints which can be washed.
Soft sheen – this paint gives a subtle gleam to the walls – it’s not as flat as a matt paint and tends therefore to be a little more durable, making it a good choice for high traffic areas such as the hall and stairs.
For Furniture
It depends on the item of furniture, for example if you’re painting a dining table and chairs you need a hardwearing finish and will probably want to sand the items, use an undercoat and then a topcoat designed for wood. But something like a bedding box could be given a distressed look with a chalk paint which doesn’t need a lot of preparation and can be waxed over to give a little sheen and protection as the last step.
For outdoors
Walls require masonry paint, which is a tough paint designed for outdoors, able to stand up to changeable weather conditions. The finish can be smooth or textured which helps to hide imperfections.
Wooden gates, sheds, fences and garden furniture can be painted with specially formulated garden paint that comes in a range of colours. Some are opaque, meaning you can see the wood grain through the paint. Others will give full coverage depending on preference.
For more decorating advice visit her blog Tidylife at www.tidyawaytoday.co.uk
