Do It Yourself Guide

Home painting is not everyone’s cup of tea. But all of us should give it a try because it gives immense pleasure while doing so. Here are some useful tips that would help you give your walls a proper finish.

Do the preparation

• The very first thing you need to do is to wash down all the walls, which you want to paint. You can take the help of a pressure washer. It can be taken on rent from any store. After completing the washing process, take a scraper and remove all the chipped areas and loose paintings. No need to scrap the whole wall. But the uneven areas need to scraped as they create problems while painting.
• Next thing to do is to calculate the area of the wall by square footage so that you can determine the amount of paint required. Buy paint in 5-gallon pails, rather than gallons to save more money.

Collect your tools

• You will need painting brushes and rollers during painting. What type and how many brushes you need can be best decided by consulting your local paint store. For oil based paints, you can opt for natural or synthetic bristles, while you can use synthetic bristles with latex paint. The same rule applies while selecting rollers.
• Don’t forget to purchase some painter’s tape. It is a blue tape that comes in different widths and can be easily removed without messing up your paint job.

Precautions before applying

• Don’t start painting out of the paint cans. Because during painting it will remain open and come in contact with air, that would dry it out, thus making the paint difficult to apply. Also the brush or roller will take foreign particles like dirt into the paint that will enter your paint and can change the color as you go long.
• Painting should be started from the edge of the wall and move towards the middle. Most of us do just opposite and face problems. If you start painting with a new can of paint in the middle of the wall, then there are chances of differences in the color and that will look more prominent in the middle of the wall. Therefore with each new can of paint, start painting from the edges.
• Before starting painting, dip you roller in water for latex paints and in solvent for oil based paints. Either you use a pan or a 5-gallon bucket, roll it out a little to make sure it isn’t dripping. You don’t need to go all the way from the top to the bottom as you paint.

How you should apply?

• It is good to apply the paint in a N or Y pattern. Then apply in columns up and down smoothing out all the edges or ridges. Don’t try to stretch the paint, and make sure you have enough amount of paint on the paint roller to give it a good coat. In case of applying more than one coat, the first coat should be completely dry before applying a new coat of paint.
• It is always difficult to paint the corners. If you are careless you light see paint dripping from corners later. Get close to the corners but but don’t scrape the roller against the corner. It will cause drips. Always keep a paintbrush ready for taking care of any drips or ridges you leave behind. It is better to do this rather than trying to fix it later.

Too many people, when decorating, underestimate the importance of getting the color right. color has tremendous power if used correctly and, if applied without appropriate forethought, can kill any decorating scheme stone-dead. Professional decorators make full use of the range of colors to achieve a contrast or a color match that enhances any scheme they are promoting. A particularly valuable tool is the color wheel which gives you access to literally thousands of color combinations, many of which you might never think would go together. However, regardless of any professional’s opinion, the first step to any decorating scheme is to choose the colors you like – after all, you’re the one who has to live with the finished result.

A color wheel identifies color families that relate to each other. All colors result from the primary colors which are blue, yellow and red. All other colors are combinations of these basic colors: as an example, if you want brown, you simply mix all three of the primary colors together in equal quantities. To obtain the secondary colors of violet, green and orange, you mix equal quantities of two primary colors together: red and blue produces violet; blue and yellow produces green; and red and yellow produces orange. To obtain tertiary colors you need to mix a larger quantity of one primary color with a smaller amount of another primary color: a reddish-violet is obtained through one part blue with two parts red.

In every color there is a hue and a tone so, for instance, if you have a light blue and a dark blue, blue is the hue. The importance of tone when organizing a color scheme for your decorating project cannot be emphasized enough. Tone represents the reflective quality of the color and its actual density. There is a color scale, graduating from white to black and a saturation scale which relates to a color’s boldness and purity. It is a well-known fact that color does affect mood. Warm shades give a feeling of strength and are considered to be cozy colors which radiate warmth in a room. Reds in different shades are now very popular colors for dining rooms, kitchens and bedrooms.

I am sure you wouldn’t want to walk into a room with all four walls decorated in pure orange – it would be a bit overpowering! Yellow, however, has different connotations depending on the shade, hue, tone and value. Pale yellow, such as primrose, is a very pleasant, soothing color for a room while bright yellow can aggravate. If it is feelings of trust you want to generate you need to choose the cool colors, such as a very soft green like mint green, or the color of celery. Blue can be used in any room of the house and always works. A light blue room always appears to be bright and refreshing, giving peaceful undertones. Dark blue will promote a more restrained mood. An atmosphere of serenity can be achieved with the color violet. This color is connected to romance and is becoming a popular choice for bedrooms and living rooms. Regardless of the color scheme, you do need to acknowledge the power of color – used correctly it creates the right mood. Wrong colors can have a completely adverse effect regardless of how carefully it is applied.

Home Decorating Ideas offers quick cheap tips on how to decorate your house. Includes tips on decorating the office, living room, bedroom, kitchen and more.

Probably every homeowner eventually has home renovation ideas, but these may not be put into action on account of them not being “front burner” concerns.  For the home renovation newbie considering such a task, here are a couple of thoughts.  First off, home renovation is a term that can encompass many different kinds of home improvement work. While “home renovation” and “home remodeling” are similar terms and overlap in a number of different areas, there are also some differences. For example, your home renovation ideas may involve repairing and/or upgrading your home to increase its amenities, functionality, and energy-efficiency, whereas the term home remodeling is often more about upgrading décor, style, space, and fixtures.

Another example is replacing the old laminate countertop in a bathroom with a new granite one.  This would classify as a home remodeling project, whereas installing a bathroom ventilation fan would have to classify as renovation work.  Okay – moving on…having clarified the vernacular, it is also helpful to know that your home renovation ideas need not cost a fortune, and both types of projects will add value to your home.  Home renovation comes in many different package sizes too.  Some projects naturally lead to others, whereas other home renovation ideas are very simple.  Following this paragraph is a short list to help prompt some home renovation ideas that will actually pay you back over time and serve as great investments in your home.

Doors and Windows – One of the most popular home renovation ideas is to replace doors and windows because it is relatively inexpensive.  Upgrading these areas of your home can increase your home’s efficiency and décor.  In addition to paying you back in energy savings over time, such projects also help the environment and so they can be considered “green”.  In fact, the green-est home renovation ideas all involve the savings of energy.  In this case, it would be the percentage of heat loss through window openings. If this becomes one of your home renovation ideas, be sure to install double or triple paned windows as this will optimize you objective in reducing heat loss as well as heat gain (solar load), air leakage, and condensation problems.  Coupled with this idea is often door replacement as well.  Over time, wood doors can shrink, swell, or bow causing a door to stick or otherwise make it difficult to open and close.  Such affected doors can also allow a draft to come in around the door perimeter.  Doors can be sanded down or even elongated to fix these problems, but it may simply be time for your home renovation ideas to incorporate a new door. This is rather easy to accomplish (though it took my father-in-law 3 days and my contractor 2 hours) and wood is the traditional, timeless option, but fiberglass or steel may offer better performance and durability.

Insulate and Ventilate – Roof insulation is one of the most overlooked home renovation ideas.  Heat rises of course, but most don’t realize that it keeps rising and can work its way out through the roof.  Roof insulation will help keep this heat inside your home, directly affecting the overall insulation performance of most homes more than any other insulation project. The key to proper insulation is to make sure you also install proper ventilation to prevent potential wood rot and ice dams.  Basement insulation is another one of the great home renovation ideas.  The best plan is usually to install basement insulation along your basement walls.  Many homeowners install basement insulation in their basement ceiling to prevent cold floors upstairs. This may help to a small degree, but this also serves to cut off valuable heat transfer through the floor resulting in an ultra cold, damp basement.  Ideally, your home renovation ideas involving insulation should first be the roof, but then include the basement walls.  With basement wall insulation you can turn what would have been a cold basement, into a livable space.

Add Storage Cabinets and Reorganize – Few people like the idea of spring cleaning, regardless of the season or the need.  However, if your home is being overrun by simple clutter, the sheer psychological weight of trying to clean the house can be overwhelming. Worse yet, you may not know where exactly your clutter can be stowed, forcing you to spend countless hours, trying to reorganize everything, knowing that in just a few weeks everything is going to have piled up again!  As a solution, another one of the great home renovation ideas is to install extra storage cabinets and hire an interior designer to come in and reorganize the home. They will often give you a plan to follow for stowing away your common household items in a way that will help you to maintain a clean house. Custom built storage cabinets will also help to motivate you and those living with you, to keep the house clean and reduce the time-consuming and psychological baggage of clutter removal.

So, when putting together your list of home renovation ideas, be sure to weigh the benefits as well as the costs of renovation or remodeling.  The first primarily improves value, whereas the second improves the aesthetic feel.