Alright...the ultimate DIY project. Let's talk a little about paint.
This is the project that everyone wants to take on themselves, and a lot of people kind of mess it up and might have problems.
Preparation Lead
First, we need to know what you are painting. If your house was built before 1978 I think, you need to be concerned with lead paint and take precautions(masks, gloves and so on). This is going to be a bigger and bigger thing in the coming years. I the states, some states require for outdoor work to have half your yard covered in plastic and for material removed to be handled in a protected way, which means you are working in a bunny suit with respirator. Yay! Like painting wasn't bad enough.
Oil Paint
Oil paint has now been phased out in BC. Once again...yay! You can't buy it except in forms of products that can't be made with a water base(oil based primer for example) So, what do you do if you have oil based walls or trim? Well, first we need to decide if you have oil paint. I use a couple of different techniques. First, I rub a spot with acetone and if the acetone removes paint, then its water base, but if it just dulls the paint from your rubbing, then its most likely oil. There is a problem with some of the enamels that are water base, but kind of act like oil. I don't worry about it too much because this is my get out of call backs free card:
With trim, I almost always put down a coat of oil based primer. It sticks to all our problem paint, and I can use whatever I want on top. We're usually going some shade of white anyway, right?
The other thing to do is put down a sample and let it dry. If you can scratch it off with a finger nail, prime it. If not, you are good to go. I honestly do not worry about oil paint that much to get samples and test it and all that.
I should mention for newbs...latex can only go on latex, but oil can go on latex, but latex can't go on oil.
But you said use oil based primer?
Oil based primer is the exception. Latex sticks very well to it. Primer isn't paint.
Do I have to check the walls?
If the place is old enough, you could have walls painted with oil. Thankfully, as the gloss goes down, your concerns about oil go down. You still need to deal with it, but its glossy surfaces that cause problems in painting.
You will find people in paint shops that will tell you "it should be ok if you sand it well" and all that. Depends on the effort you want to put in. As I said, I don't want to go back and peel a wall while someone is living there, so I prime the shit out of it.
Sanding
This is 90% of a paint job. A good paint job in your place has walls that are smooth and crisp. You get there by sanding them. Painting is invariably going to leave defects. The higher end we go, the less defects are acceptable, and we can strain paint and move quickly to minimize them, but you are rolling a wall with a roller in a less than ideal environment.
So the key is to remove everyone elses flaws(dirt, fuzz, roller texture etc) so that your paint looks good. So you need this:
and you take the surface off the walls. It sucks, it hurts your arms and then you realize you are only have way through. But its the difference between charging $600 for the job and $1800.
Oh, we've filled nicks and nail holes prior to this so we can sand everything at the same time.
QUICK TIP:
Here's the secret sauce. When you open that new roller(15mm for interior walls) roll it in green tape and then rip the tape off the roller. Removes lint that would otherwise end up on your wall. Do it a few times if you need to.
Buying Paint
I can buy a gallon of paint for like $20. I can spend $80. I can buy mis-tints for like $2 if you don't care. Ralph Lauren sold his name to it. Martha did for awhile.
Where do you start?
Paint is a bit of branding and a lot of the chemistry. Paint has suspended solids in a liquid carrier. The better paint has more solids. So I can go to Benjamin Moore and buy their cheap, shitty contractor grade paint(which I did...once) or go to Sherwin Williams or General Paint and buy their top of the line stuff and I have better paint from them, than I do from the perceived better brand from Moore. Solids.
What's the other difference? Benjamin Moore is the standard for choosing colors. I mean, Pantone is THE standard, but interior designers et al all talk in terms of Benjamin Moore.
I can mix Benji's colors at General or Sherwin or Cloverdale no problem. They will be a close approximation. Here's the funny thing. Home Depot and Lowe's sell paint. Oh! We have a computer! Yippie Doo. I like Sherwin Williams myself. I have a really good relationship with them. I realized that ICI/General/Cloverdale are the choice of the big guys, and I wasn't swimming in their pool. Sherwin, when I first went in, was busy opening stores and was looking for people like me to grow their business. My first day in, she gave me a 5 gallon bucket of paint to try them out with. I've been going back ever since.
Anyway, the computer. Sherwin doesn't have one(they might, but I've never seen it used). A good person that can mix paint can do better by eye, than a random at HD or Lowe's using a computer. I have had bang on matches for paint that I have used right up against an existing wall. By eye.
So you get what you pay for. I don't know that there is a real difference between Sherwin/Cloverdale/General in terms of quality 'if' you stay within the same price range. If you are truly concerned, then you can sit there and get into the specifics on the paint chemistry.
One thing I do notice is there is a HUGE difference in going up the quality tiers. I usually use the contractor grade paint from Sherwin. You go from that to a retail can at Cloverdale and its a completely different beast. Rolls smoother and nicer. I used the contractor grade form General a few weeks ago on a rental and there was a negligible difference.
Paint Sheen
Pet Peeve of mine. Eggshell is a sheen, not a color.
It goes:
Flat(ceilings)
Eggshell(most non traffic walls such as bedrooms)
Satin(halls)
Semi-gloss(trim)
Gloss(other)
It also goes:
Flat(shows finger prints/collects dirt from touching/dirt sponge/do not ever touch)
Eggshell(doesn't show as much dirt, but easy to mark, can be washed, but leaves marks)
Satin(easier to clean)
Semi-gloss(easier still to clean, difficult to mark, more resistent to damage)
Gloss(most resistant to damage)
It ALSO goes:
Flat(hides the most imperfections)
Eggshell(shows more imperfections, but still good)
Satin(more still)
Semi-gloss(shows imperfections)
Gloss(your neighbors can see where you forgot to sand)
All because of how much light it reflects in the room
One more. It ALSO goes:
Flat(least expensive because it contains less solids)
Eggshell(pricier)
Satin(more still)
Semi-gloss(more again)
Gloss(most expensive because it contains the most paint solids)
BTW..Benji Moore has their own names, for gloss to confuse you and CIL I think, which is carried by HD just calls it by room name.
The Dark Side
I hate it when people paint their walls red. First, from a style perspective, you need the perfect combination of a lot of white to balance it, which people don't do and second:
YOU NEED WAY MORE PAINT THAN YOU THINK YOU DO
Orange is included in this.
To paint a dark red, first you need to prime the walls. This will be noted on the paint card. For most reds, its a battleship grey, but the paint store will give you what you need. Then you start painting. nice and evenly, which is difficult, because its more like wall stain than paint. There is such a volume of tint(which has no solids) that you need to paint and paint and paint. Using regular paint, you are usually good for 7 coats to get coverage. Depending on the paint, you might be getting into 8 or 9. I used an enamel on a bathroom and I think we stopped at 5 or 6 coats. I also used a thick heavy set paint as a primer for an orange bedroom and I was still at 3 and I could still see though it, they just weren't paying me enough to go for the full thing.
It can be done, but if you are paying someone, then you are paying for a room 4 to 5 times the size because of the coats needed.
Materials
I laugh every time I'm in the paint department at home Depot and see people buying the supplies to paint, and they grab the cheapest brush on the shelf. I only use purdy brushes, and I've had one of them for about 2 years. Never lost a bristle.
You can't get good results using cheap shit. Buy the good brush. It holds more paint, which means it takes less time, and with more paint on the brush, you can keep that straight line going for longer meaning a smoother result.
This:
is not this:
Same thing goes for rollers. I have used: lamb wool, rope, and every variety of white roller available.
Lamb wool is pretty nice, but I'm too lazy to clean them properly at the end of the day. I did not like the rope ones, but they do leave a nice texture.
I like the 15mm white ones from General Paint.
QUICK TIP: A nice, clean used roller is better to use than a new one. All the lint is gone, and it leaves a really nice finish.
Technique
Depending on what we're doing(high end/low end) I vary the combination of cut/roll/cut/roll.
Low end, I usually cut/cut/ roll/roll. Really low end, I cut/roll/roll then touch up. It depends a lot on the color and the paint for what type of coverage I'm getting. Short of using tar for paint, or a fresh coat of the existing color, almost always you have to roll twice. That's not so bad, because rolling is the easy part.
Rlling out your walls does NOT look like this:
It looks like this:
Nice up and down, floor to ceiling strokes and back rolling into the paint for about 2 roller widths. There are videos on youtube I'm sure.
QUICK TIP
Tape: Tape sucks. Paint bleeds through. Yeah, even that frogtape shit you see on tv.
If I'm butting 2 colors together into a corner, I paint the one color over the corner. Let it dry for about 24 hours(you can't tape curing paint, peels right off). Then, tape the corner nice and straight, then seal the edge of the tape with the first color. If the tape is going to bleed(it will) the color that bleeds will be the existing color. You won't see it. Then, once that is dry to touch, paint the corner with the second color. If its not razor sharp, then you get your money back. I have never had a corner like that that didn't look like it was store bought.
I'm sure there is more to say, but I think that covers the major parts.
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