Learn how to get your room ready for decorating with tips from a professional decorator.
Where do you start when you are trying to get your room ready to decorate? This post is a guide on how to prepare your room ready for decorating based on a professional painter and decorator tried and tested methods.
Materials required:
- 50mm tape
- Plastic bags
- Dust sheets
Furniture & belongings
Spending a little more time removing items from the room that you can will speed up the painting and decorating process. You may have no choice for certain furniture other than to put it in the middle of the room, but having less items in the room will mean more room to manoeuvre and less climbing over things. If you place all the tools and paint in middle of the room with at least a 1m gap from the skirting then you have more room to spread out.
Removing items from the room will result in less dusting and cleaning after you are finished, especially if door to the room is closed during decorating with the furniture outside of the project keeping most of the dust in the room. There will also be better air circulation in the room that you are decorating, meaning that the paint will dry quicker.
Cleaning
Once you have removed most of the items from your room you should continue to get your room ready by dusting the tops of skirting and vacuum cleaning the edge of the floor and carpet. This will help masking tape stick better later when you come to put it down and will prevent dust getting in the paint.
Masking and protection
Floor & carpet: Once cleaned, use a good quality 50mm width tape to mask your edges. You may have to push the tape between the skirting and carpet to prevent paint going on the carpet and carpet fluff going on your freshly painted skirting. Don’t use cheap, thin masking tape as it tends not to stick, and you will waste time trying to pick it off the roll or trying to prevent it from tearing while taping. Once you are done taping the floor, lay dust sheets down to fully cover the floor.
If you have new flooring or want extra protection, use card flooring protection such as X.board, a breathable, eco-friendly and reusable product, or for carpets use carpet protection film.
Furniture: You can use dust sheets or plastic sheets or if you don’t have these, bed sheets will work too.
Light switches and sockets: Use the 50mm masking tape and wrap round the whole edge of your sockets and switches. Make sure to leave a slight gap between the tape and wall just in case when peeling the tape off it doesn’t peel off the wall paint with it.
Ceiling Light: Remove shades and unscrew the pendent cover leaving it to hang exposing the wires. It may be possible to remove the cover screws to allow the light to hang away from ceiling or completely removing the light if it’s too delicate or heavy to hang on the wires. If it\’s safe to leave the light hanging then cover the light in a plastic bag for protection.
General: Professional painters and decorators tend to mask most items that are not getting painted as masking is a lot quicker than cleaning so consider masking radiators, Upvc window sills and so on.
Once everything is either removed or protected, you can place all your tools and materials in the middle of the room, perhaps with a double dust sheet under these materials in case of a paint spillage.
