Prepare Room, Move Furniture
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Most of the information I have seen about painting around furniture while working on your interior house painting project tells you to move all of the furniture to the center of the room. This really is not very helpful. Think about a bedroom or living room. If you move all of the furniture to the middle of the room, you have created a huge obstacle to paint around. Even with the proper extension pole for your paint roller, such an obstacle in the center of the room is hard to work around. it is hard to reach over this obstacle to paint the ceiling.
What Interior House Painting Blog recommends is that you move the furniture away from the walls and arrange it with a few pieces in different areas of the room. This makes it easier to work around. Think of a chain of islands spread around the room rather than a huge continent in the center. Just make sure that you leave enough room between islands and walls to place a ladder next to them.
When moving furniture, practice safe lifting. Be careful not to injure your back. I would strongly suggest you follow this link to a tutorial on safe lifting practices:
http://www.cdc.gov/nasd/docs/d001601-d001700/d001607/d001607.html
When moving furniture, take care not to damage it. Smaller light weight pieces of furniture can be picked up and moved. You may have to slide heavier pieces across the floor. Another thing to be very concerned about is the floor. Be careful not to scratch or cut any wooden or tile floors. Also, something that you may not think of is damage to carpet. Pushing or sliding heavy pieces of furniture across carpets can buckle the carpet, creating “hills and valleys” or lumps in carpet. What you need to do to avoid damage to any type of floor is to put large pieces of cardboard under the furniture and slide the furniture across the cardboard, thus protecting the floor. Visit a retail store to ask for some large, empty cardboard boxes and collapse the boxes to have a nice sheet of cardboard to slide the furniture over. Make sure the cardboard is thick enough, and be sure to remove any staples in the cardboard. Doing this at the beginning of your interior house painting project will avoid any damage to your floors.
You must also be very careful with any electrical outlets or switches in the room. You need to turn off the circuit breakers for the outlets in the room you are working on to avoid shock. Latex paint contains a lot of water, and everyone knows that water conducts electricity. Sometimes you may need to turn off more than one breaker for one room. A foolproof way to see if an outlet is off is to use a circuit tester. Inexpensive circuit testers may be purchased at any hardware store. Circuit testers consist of two wires or bars connected to a sealled light. If you plug the circuit tester into any outlet and it lights up, you will know you were not successful in turning off all electricity to the room you want to paint and you will have to to turn off the right breaker, perhaps several. After all of the electricity in the room is off, it is safe to remover the switch plates and outlet covers so as not to get any paint on them. Place all of the screws in a glass and be sure to place it somewhere that it will not be forgotten or knocked over.
You must cover all of your furniture with drop cloths. For this, use plastic sheets that you can buy at any paint or hardware store. Buy the thicker sheets. The thin sheets of plastic are hard to unfold and also tear easily. There are also drop cloths for your interior house painting job that are paper on one side and plastic on the other. These are also ideal for covering floors. You now know the best and the quickest way to set up a room to begin your interior house painting project.
Lead Paint Warning
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Lead was added to paint until 1978. So if you are painting a house constructed before1979, lead paint was almost certainly used to paint it. If you are old enogh, you must remember that lead was also added to gasoline until it was made illegal to do so.
I realize that Internet etiquette dictates not to use capital letters and that it is considered shouting, but I wanted to keep this serious warning intact. I copied this warning right off of the lid of a paint can. I want to make this common knowledge. I know that people rarely read the warnings on labels of any kind, so I am putting this lead paint warning here so that it will be read and taken to heart.
WARNING! If you scrape, sand or remove old paint, you may release lead dust. LEAD IS TOXIC. EXPOSURE TO LEAD DUST CAN CAUSE SERIOUS ILLNESS, SUCH AS BRAIN DAMAGE, ESPECIALLY IN CHILDREN. PREGNANT WOMEN SHOULD ALSO AVOID EXPOSURE. Wear a NIOSH approved respirator to control lead exposure. Clean up carefully with a HEPA vacuum and a wet mop. Before you start, find out how to protect yourself and your family by calling the National Lead Information Hotline at 1-800-424-LEAD or log on to www.epa.gov/lead .
Don’t panic, lead paint poses no danger if it is intact and undisturbed. Flaking or peeling paint does pose a danger to children if they chew on paint chips. Paint chips have a sweet taste, so be careful, and remove all peeling or flaking paint. Where lead paint poses a hazard is when painting or renovations are done. That is when sanding and scraping can put lead dust in the air and have it settle on surfaces.
Starting in April 2010, federal law will require that anyone performing renovations, repair and painting projects that disturb lead-based paint in homes, child care facilities and schools built before 1978 must be certified and follow specific work practices to prevent lead contamination. Until that time, the EPA recommends that anyone performing these repairs, renovations or painting in pre-1978 structures follow these three simple rulea:
-CONTAIN the work area
-MINIMIZE dust
-CLEAN up thoroughly
If you have a contractor paint your home, make sure they follow these work practices.
In addition to lead-based paint, non lead-based that is in use today requires special precautions to avoid harm to your health. I am going to copy another warning off of a paint can to make sure that you read it. It is as follows:
CAUTION:
Use only with adequate ventilation. To avoid overexposure, open windows and doors or use other means to ensure fresh air entry during application and drying. If you experiencine eye watering, headache or dizzines, increase fresh air or wear properly fitted respirator or leave the area. When spraying, wear proper respiratory protection. Adequate ventilation is required before sanding or abrading the dry film. If adequate ventilation cannot be provided, wear an approved particulate respirator [I always use a dust mask when sanding because I like my lungs.] In all cases follow respirator manufacturer’s direction for respirator use. Avoid contact with eyes and skin. [Wear safety glasses with side shields.] Wash thoroughly after handling. Do not take internally. Close container after each use. FIRST AID: In case of eye contact, flush with plenty of water for at least 15 minutes. Get medical attention. If swallowed , get medical attention immediately.
I don’t want to scare you away from your painting project or even hire a contractor to paint your home. I also don’t want to scare away any new professional painters. It is a great job. I have been doing it for years, and my health is excellent.
I had to inform you of all of these hazards because it is very important. Go to the government web site for a lot more information on lead-based paint. I am glad that you now know about all of these hazards. Like everything else in life, it pays to be careful. Take care.
CAUTION:
Always Do This First
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Before even considering doing an interior house painting job you should walk through the area to be painted with your customer. During this inspection point out any paint that is in places where paint doesn’t belong. Look at all of the carpet, tile, or natural wood floor to find any paint spots. Frequently, paint can be found along the baseboards of the room. Also look for scratches on the wood or tile floor. Check wallpaper, counter tops, and any areas where there should not be any paint. Check all natural wood trim and doors for any paint. Look for spatters of paint on all of the floors.
As you inspect the area to be painted for any unwanted paint, also check the contents of the room. Look carefully at the furniture in the room to see if there are any cracks or cuts on any of it. Check for any flimsy or loose furniture which might be damaged or ready to fall apart, especially when moved. Sliding furniture across the carpet can buckle the carpet. Point out any “hills” in the carpet that already exist. Look at the decorations in the area to be painted. Inspect any knickknacks or other decorations for damage or cracks. Also note any cracked windows or cut screens. In our walk through inspection we are just pointing out any paint spots or damage in the area to be painted before we even start painting so that we are not blamed for any irregularities that we did not cause on our interior house painting job. Believe it or not, the people living in the home to be painted may not even be aware of these things. They are easily overlooked until the final inspection of the area after the painting is complete. This is the time that the customer looks at every little detail and may find things that are overlooked in the normal course of things.
Why Paint Anyway?
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Why should you paint rooms on the interior of a house? You will be better able to answer this question when the paint job is completed. At that time you will be proud of the beautiful new rooms that you have created. An interior paint job makes the home more attractive, clean, fresh and beautiful, just like it is brand new. Nothing improves the appearance of the home better than a fresh paint job.
Before you paint there may be holes or cracks in the walls and ceiling. Also furniture often makes unattractive marks on the walls. You may just want a change. A good interior house painting totally transforms a home. One of the greatest reasons that I love to complete a paint job is to see how good it makes the homeowner feel. They are always thrilled and grateful for the work.
Another reason to paint an interior is to increase the value of a home. Also, if you are selling the house, it will almost always sell shortly after the application of the home paint, and for a higher price than it would have before the painting. I have painted homes and later heard from the homeowner that the house sold for more than they expected. Many times an appraisal after the painting is for a higher value than it was previous to the work. If there is a vacant home that has been on the market for a long time with no offers, a new coat of paint almost always sells the home within a couple of months. I know this because I have painted a lot of vacant interiors for realtors, and after I am done the house sells in short order.
As you can see, there are a lot of reasons to paint the interior of a home. So let’s get to it!
What Qualifies Me to Paint Houses?
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So just exactly what qualifies me to provide interior house painting instructions? I have been a professional house painter since 1970. I started painting as a child, and during college I made money painting during the summers. When I graduated in 1970, I painted many of the houses in my neighborhood, then moved on to paint other structures. I worked for other painting contractors and then started my own house painting business. I worked with professional house painters with varying degrees of experience, and with different methods of preparation and application of various types of home paint. I really don’t think that there is any question that I can’t answer about house painting. I have painted countless homes and commercial structures. I learned a great deal from other house painters, and I am always learning more. I am an expert on house painting preparation. In addition to learning from other professional house painters, I learned a great deal more just by preparing and painting myself. I can prepare any home for painting, including sealing cracks, holes, gaps and everything else involved in house painting preparation. I went through countless five gallon cans of joint compound and spackle and hundreds and hundreds of gallons of paint. I have painted with all types of house paint, including latex, oil, epoxy, zylene based and other coatings. I worked in body shops and repaired and painted cars and trucks. Car painting is a fine art. In addition to residential interior house painting, I have painted huge malls, churches, schools and factories. I once had over 2000 apartment units under contract. The apartments all had to be painted when tenants moved out. The apartment painting was a lot of fun. I have brushed, rolled, and sprayed my way through life. In short, I know how to paint, and it thrills me to help others learn how to do interior house painting in the best ways possible, and save a LOT of time in the process. I can also be very helpful to professional house painters and contractors. What drove me to put up this interior house painting blog was reading and seeing interior house painting instructions by others. Don’t get me wrong, there are some excellent instructions out there, all correct and useful for interior house painting jobs. But there is a lot of bad advice and misinformation. Also, much of what I have come across in interior house painting instructions is correct and good, but only TOO thorough. The instructions, if followed, will produce excellent results, but there are ways to really save time painting. I really want to help people to produce excellent, long lasting results, but also save time painting in the process. I hope I can be of some help to you.
Introduction
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The purpose of this blog is to instruct people to save time and energy doing interior house painting jobs as well as to have them look really great and save money in the process. The owner of this web site has over 30 years experience as a professional house painter and painting contractor. The publisher is passionately driven to show and tell the right ways to do an interior house painting project in the least time and least aggravation for the best looking job.
After watching and reading much instruction on interior house painting it is seen that a great deal of the information is just plain wrong. We need to remedy this condition. The information in the Interior House Painting Blog will be useful to both homeowners and painting contractors.