Prepare your room to paint is as important as anything else you will do to the room or rooms. Properly getting the walls and ceiling ready to paint are critical in your overall investment, as well as that final stroke of the brush.

I wanted to give you some suggestions and ideas of getting your new room or make over ready for paint. So many people dread this part of the project, others skip these steps all together. The importance of doing the steps below will help with preserving your paint, and also create a great professional look.

One of the first steps before the prep stage, is to assess the entire room. Get some ideas of what color you might want to paint before you prepare the room. Always take notes when you start a project. This will get the wheels turning and ideas started. Maybe you have thoughts on colors, accents, and accessories already in mind. Before you can begin designing and decorating, the following steps needs to get done to prepare for painting. Put some plastic or an old sheet around your floor. You want to protect the carpet, tile, or hard woods.

You will need to sand the walls, and use a spackling compound to fill up the nail or other holes. Take a small putty knife and put a little bit of the spackling mix on the knife. Fill each hole with the spackling compound and let each hole dry completely. Alright, I have to ask you a question? Did you ever fill your wall holes with other crazy material? Lets say you didn't have spackling compound around.

I have heard that some people will take tooth paste and fill in the holes. I have a confession to make. Not don't laugh, and maybe some of you have done the same thing with other materials. When our daughters were young and there wasn't the correct material to fill in the holes, I used their diaper rash ointment to fill the holes. The ointment did the trick, but I wouldn't recommend this for daily use of filling in nail holes or other grooves in your walls. The walls had a little smell of baby to them.

Sanding and smoothing out the wall is part of your prep stage. There may be bumps from old paint, scratches from furniture, and where you applied the spackling compound. I like to take a little stronger grade sandpaper and sand all the walls. I will go over it again with a light weight sandpaper and make sure all the walls are completely smooth. Depending on the amount of dust, I will bring out the vacuum and put an attachment on and remove all the excess dust.

Whether you are prepping a new wall or old wall, you will want to wash the walls and woodwork. This is not a fun job but a necessary step to take. Grab a pail, warm water, and a sponge or rag. Whether you are painting a new room or an existing room, dust particles, possible smoke, and other materials will gather on your walls. Once you have washed all the walls and woodwork let them dry for awhile. Cleaning the walls before priming and painting, will give you fresh walls to proceed.



Once the walls are dried, prime the wall. It doesn't matter whether you are planning on painting plaster board, cement or other materials. Plan on priming the wall even if it is a new wall. This gives each wall a protective coating. If you have existing paint on the wall, I still recommend to prepare and prime each wall. Primers are also wonderful if you have an existing dark color on your walls, and you are planning on using a lighter color. A couple coats of primer will ensure that your new color will be its true shade and not a mixture of the old and new paint.

The ceiling can be a little more challenging to prepare, if necessary. Whether you are painting a ceiling for the first time or changing colors, you will want to consider washing and priming the ceiling also. If you have a textured ceiling, there are specialized rollers available today to use on this type of ceiling. Of course a ladder is a must. There are also longer poles available so you can attach the roller to the pole. A tray ceiling also has to be prepared properly and in the same fashion. I will be doing a page on tray ceilings and how to use different colors to create the mood that may be suitable for your particular room. One tip when prepping and painting a room, always prepare and work from the top of a room down.

Preparing your room or rooms to paint or wallpaper, is a great way to start any interior decorating project. Doing the preparation stage right the first time may avoid spending time down the road repairing and redoing the walls. If you are a person that dreads this stage, think of it as your fist step in your interior decorating investment. Well Worth The Time!