Painting is one of the easiest DIY jobs in terms of making your house more attractive or look more updated. However, one of the things that almost everyone complains about is the ceiling. It’s definitely one of the most difficult areas to paint because you need a lot of elevation and a little contortion mixed with some good old elbow grease. If you are planning on painting a ceiling any time soon, read the blog below for some professional tips on doing so – without breaking your back! Or if you prefer you can always hire an interior painter in Summit to do this job for you; house painters in Summit NJ are skilled at painting every room of your house.
Materials and Tools Needed
Painters Primer
Drop Cloth
Painters Tape
Roller and Extension Pole
Roller Tray
Damp Sponge
Stepladder
Step 1
Before you paint anything, make sure that all of the furniture, rugs or drapes are moved out of the way. Everything else can be covered with a drop cloth, but anything that can be moved should, just in case you have any little droplets of paint come down and fall onto those items. You should also make sure that the ceiling is clean. If you smoke in your house, have cobwebs in the corners or it’s the least bit dirty and dusty take a damp rag and clean those things off, you can also use a duster to remove cob webs and dust from the area. Make sure it’s dry before you do step number 2 or the paint won’t adhere correctly.
Step 2
Take some painters tape, in 3-4 inch long pieces and put it at the top of the walls, in the crease between the wall and the ceilings. This will ensure that none of your ceiling paint gets on your wall and trim paint. This is a little easier if your walls are going to be the same color as your ceilings, but if they are going to be two separate colors you will need to make sure that one doesn’t run into the other or you will have to do the top of the walls all over again. If you haven’t painted the walls yet but you are planning on painting the entire room, the ceiling is the place you should start.
Step 3
Apply your primer on the ceiling. This may seem like a waste of time, but it’s not. The primer is used as a barrier against stains and in a lot of cases when you add a primer it means that you will need to make one coat rather than two or three. Primers come in mainly white colors, unless you want a tint. And they can be found in the same place where you buy your paint, ask the paint department which brand they recommend for your specific paint job.
Step 4
Using a step ladder or if your ceilings are really high a regular ladder to paint a cut line the cut line should be 2-3 inches long and should go at the very edge of the ceiling. This can be done using a simple trim brush – the roller would be too fat and bulky to make the cut line, so that’s why you want to use a thinner slimmer paint brush. While the cut line is still wet or in the least damp, you should then be using your paint roller to paint the ceiling. The reason you want to do this while the cut line is still wet is because it will help reduce the visible lines.
Step 5
If you’ve never used a roller before, it’s actually quite easy. Just fill up your tray with some paint, and roll the roller over the paint until the entire nap is covered. The key here is to make sure you are not submerging the roller, but instead just lightly touching it against the paint and slowly rolling it back and forth until the entire nap is covered. This will reduce the spray and drips that you get when you submerge a roller.
Step 6
Now you need to attach the pole to the roller. Once you attach it, you should be making a zigzag pattern on the ceiling, not strokes, but zigzags! In doing this you should be creating small squares about 4×4”.
Depending on the paint, as well as the ceiling you might have to do this twice, but just repeat the same process over again starting at step 4 with the cut line.