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Painting Your Home

© Shefali Kumar

Painting Your Home

This article will present some useful information on the actual process of painting. This will not only be useful if you are painting yourself, but also if you are getting a contractor to do the job.

Steps Involved

Once you have decided on the color, you are ready for the fun! There are five major steps in the painting process:

• Step 1: Preparing the Surface - Whether you are painting exterior walls or interior surfaces, preparing the surface is a critical step. The surface to be painted needs to be suitable for accepting the paint. The procedure that you need to follow will depend on the type of paint to be used. Removing debris and cleaning the surface of any loose material is a must. This step can affect the overall look of your paint so take extra care while cleaning the base surface. Here are some tips.
  • For preparing an exterior surface for painting
  • For preparing an interior surface for painting. This site also includes an animation.
  • A very good site for getting tips for preparing different types of surfaces.
• Step 2: Applying the Primer - A primer is a base coat that provides adhesion to the paint. So it is important to select the right primer for your paint. The primer is selected on the basis of the paint and more critically, on the basis of the surface you want to paint. New gypsum board walls will require a different primer that a plaster wall. Here are some informative sites about primers.
  • Uses of Primers
  • Devoe and Glidden Primers for exterior and interior applications
  • A comparison of some of the primers available on the market
• Step 3: Buying the Paint - After preparing and priming the surface, you are now ready to paint. In order to buy the right amount of paint, you will need to calculate the total area you will be painting. To enable you to do this calculation with ease, here are some web-based calculators.