Painting a home is one of those jobs that many people aren’t sure about. Should you hire a professional or can you do it yourself? Well, for most people, interior painting can be done by themselves. However, you need to be very careful and plan ahead. Also, it might save you some money to hire a professional. Even with that, many people have decided they want to push through and paint for themselves. Painting yourself gives you complete control over the project. So, here is what you will need to do. 

Step 1: Gather Your Supplies

The first thing to do is to get everything in order. Presumably, you’ve already picked a color for the room. You need to buy drop cloths to protect your floors, painters’ tape, paint pans, rollers, brushes, and paint thinner. Finally, you need paint. You should buy more paint than you think you need. You need to buy extra paint for two reasons. For one, you might miscalculate how much you actually need. Also, you’ll want to have paint left over for touch-ups in the future.

Make sure you buy all of your paint from the same place at the same time. Human or computer error can lead to paint being subtly different in tone if you buy it at different times or places.

Step 2: Prepare the Space

You need to prepare the room. Put the drop clothes or plastic all over the floor and take them over the baseboards. Make sure you put tape around the window trim as well. If you don’t want to paint the ceiling, you need to put tape at the edge of the ceiling. Once you have everything taped and covered in cloth, you’re ready to paint.

Step 3: Paint in Vertical Lines

When you are painting a room, you should be as methodical as possible. You want to paint straight up and down. Move from the top of the wall to the bottom in straight lines. Make sure that all of your strokes go in the same direction as well. Do not try to “stretch” the paint to cover a wall, and do not change paint cans in the middle of a wall. If you have to change cans of paint, wait until you get to the next wall to do so.

Step 4: Wait

You need to allow the paint to dry before applying another coat. The can will likely tell you how long to wait. That’s why applying thinner coats is preferable.

Step 5: Finish

The final step after your last coat of paint is simply removing the tape and drop clothes. You might use a small brush to touch up any corners or small areas that you missed.