How to Avoid Common Painting Problems

Many of us tackle painting our homes without consulting a professional beforehand. This can mean that the finished room is different than what you may have hoped for, usually, for a reason we can’t fully understand. So, here we’ll explore some of the most common painting problems and how you can avoid them.

Getting Overwhelmed By the Choice of Paint Colors

With so many shades and tones to choose from, it can be very easy to get overwhelmed by your choice and struggle to know where to begin. So, it is important to start with a point of inspiration. Whether this is a piece of wall art, a favorite fabric, or a page you’ve torn out of a magazine, inspiration will help you to narrow your choices.

Once you have a general color family, you can focus on the specific portion of the display at the paint store or specific section of fan deck. Each family of colors has a wide variety of tones and shades, so go with the ones that you are drawn to initially. You can then start to look at paint chips and samples. Narrow down to two or three color choices to see how they will look inside your home. If you don’t want to apply paint to your walls just yet, buy a piece of foam core or poster board and put the paint colors on it, so you can see how it looks in different areas of your room.

Bubbling, Fading or Flaking Paint

It can be very frustrating when you’ve gone to the trouble of painting your room to find that it bubbles, fades, or flakes after a short time. The way to avoid this problem is to choose a premium paint. Premium paints tend to offer durability and performance, which means that you won’t need to repaint until you want a change of color.

To get the best results, you also need to ensure that you do the proper prep work before you begin to paint. Your walls should be washed before painting, so the paint has a clean surface to adhere to effectively. Priming the walls will then seal the surface for optimal performance and ensure that the paint color remains true. Finally, be prepared to apply two coats of paint, allowing sufficient drying time between coats.

Using the Wrong Finish

Providing you use a paint with a high durability, you don’t need to stick rigidly to the old rules of using high gloss in bathrooms and matte finishes in your high traffic areas. This means that rather than focusing on how a paint will wear, you can work on the overall look you want to achieve. A gloss finish can work best on perfectly smooth walls, as it can accentuate imperfections. So, if you have older, blemished walls, matte or flat finishes are likely to work best. If you are concerned about maintaining a clean, neat finish in high traffic areas, opt for eggshell.