Painting and Decorating. Living room wallpaper-painting.
Having the winter holidays behind us, many of us are planning ahead with our next home improvement project. Changing that old carpet, replacing the kitchen or bathroom or maybe painting the living room.
Luckily, Painting in Dublin can inspire you with your painting and decorating needs. Painters and Decorators at Painting in Dublin have a wealth of experience and we are eager to share it with the world. Living rooms are the centre piece of any house. If the main door is the face of your home then the living room would be its heart, as it is by far the most used room in your house by all family members.
In our experience at Painting In Dublin, majority of leaving rooms that our painters and decorators get to decorate can be divided roughly in half with one half being wall papered and the other painted. Lately we have noticed an increase of customers asking us to remove the wall paper from their living rooms preferring the walls painted instead. The reasoning behind this preference being practicality that comes with painted walls rather than wall papered. There is a certain cosiness the wall papered walls tend to generate that people often are afraid to lose but with the modern array of selection in available paint colours and finishes, that fear increasingly seams unfounded.
If you, like half of the customers of Painting In Dublin have a wall papered living room and are thinking of redecorating it and particularly changing the wall paper for a nice painted room then we are delighted to give you a few tips that professional painters and decorators will try to hide from you. There are a number of thing you should make yourself aware of…
1. Wall paper removal.
To remove the wall paper you will need some towels, hot water, scrapers and a lot of patience.
Start by dampening the surface all around the room in order to loosen the glue from the walls. (It would be wise, at this point, to cover the floors) after you soak the walls begin pulling on the first layer of wall paper in order to expose the softer one underneath which then is removed by further soaking and more soaking. You can use a steamer to help you do the job but BE CAREFUL! The steamer generates …STEAM! Which burns if comes in contact with your skin and also if used incorrectly or excessively, can damage the walls beneath the wall paper, so if you’re not sure you can do it, seek advice from a painter and decorator.
2. Preparation work.
Even an unexperienced painter and decorator will tell you that preparation work is the most important work when painting and decorating, so please take the necessary time to prepare your walls before painting them. One advantage painters and decorators have when hanging wallpaper, is that the preparation work on the walls is reduced to minimum because the wall paper does the rest by itself but since you are changing that, your task will be greater. All holes and dents made during the removal of the wallpaper will have to be filled sanded and primed before painting so make sure you inspect the walls carefully and thoroughly before Painting the room.
3. Painting
Start painting with the ceiling, then walls, then woodwork. Painters and decorators usually begin with the corners first then fill in the rest with a roller…the bigger the better. Walls are done straight after the ceiling because there will be at least 2 coats of paint required on your walls so it can dry at the same time as the ceiling after which you can cut in your lines and do the second coat of paint on the walls. Allow to dry fully before starting on the woodwork. It usually takes paint 4 hours to be touch dry and around 16hours for a second coat. Warning! Do not apply the second coat before the paint has dried properly because it will make matters worse. Use masking tape to do your lines if you’re not a trained Painters and Decorator. Do not leave the masking tape on more than 24hours.
4. Cleaning
After all painting is done, let dry properly overnight and begin cleaning. Remove all masking tape and clean all floors as often the floors get some unwanted paint on them during painting and decorating works. Spills and sprays of paint should be cleaned straight when it happens but do not panic if the second day you notice some on the floor, usually it comes off with a damp cloth, use a clean cloth and water for emulsion and white spirit for oil based paints. Warning! White spirit may damage certain surfaces. Use caution.
Follow these steps and you can achieve a professional painting and decorating job all by yourself!
Painting In Dublin