Tips on how to paint your walls like a professional

A new coat of a paint is an easy way to instantly refresh your home.

Painting your walls is an easy way to instantly refresh your home, whether you're freshening up your white walls or are planning on adding a striking feature wall.

When it comes to paint, its not as simple a process as you might think. From choosing just the right shade of white, to ensuring that your paint finish is as smooth as it can be, there's a number of little expert tricks of the trade that will make sure you'll get it right the first time.

Of course, the best place to start is by choosing the right paint for your home – and we don't just mean getting the shade and undertone right. Paints come in a variety of finishes from gloss to matt and its important to check whether you want an oil-based paint or a water-based one.

From there, it all comes down to painting technique. Here are Shannon's top tips for getting it right...

TOP TIPS

• Pick a spot for your test patches in an obscure place on the wall, below eye level. Traces of the tests shouldn't show through when you paint over them, but this is just a precaution.

• Give the testing area a bit of a light sand and dust first, so that the paint can adhere.

• Painting two coats directly on the wall will give you the best sense of how your colours will read.

• Paint side by side, with a few inches in between to help see the differences, making them about the size of a A4 sheets of paper.

• Use a polyfill wall-repair kit to fill any holes or cracks. Allow it to dry properly before giving it a sand and a dust.

• Make sure you give the entire walls a light sand so that the new paint can adhere to the old surface.

• When applying painter's tape, use a putty knife to press down along the length of the tape to seal it and ensure a good bond.

• To load up your paintbrush for the "cutting-in" stage, cover roughly half the length of the bristles and wipe it to the side of the pot to remove excess.

• For smooth results after cutting in, make sure the brushed paint is still wet when you come to use the roller.

• Paint in sections of about two metres across and roll up and down the wall in narrow W motions for the best coverage.

• To "lay off", make sure you don't load the roller with more paint and, using almost no pressure, just lightly roll straight down from the top corner of a section to the bottom. Remove and repeat, moving across the section, each time slightly overlapping your last roll.

• Make sure you remove the painter's tape while the paint is still wet, to avoid the paint peeling off and to ensure smooth edges.

Source - homebeautiful