Interior House Painter in Cork: How To Paint The Interior Of Your House in Cork
Interior House Painter in Cork step-by-step guide to painting your home
So it’s time to repaint the interior of your house, maybe you got tired of old colors and want to freshen up the space, or you bought a new home that needs painting. In this step-by-step guide, I’ll be talking about what you need to get the job done, or if you think that it’s easier for you to hire an interior house painter in Cork, then I know just the guy to recommend you.
Interior House Painter And Decorator in Cork preparing your house for interior painting
Cleaning And Protecting The Rooms
Before we even can start painting rooms, we need to protect everything, starting with taking pictures, mirrors, and curtains off the walls. Try to take as much furniture as you can out of the room; it’ll make the job easier; whatever furniture you can’t remove, move it to the middle and cover it with dust sheets or plastic film.
Next, when you do your interior painting in Cork you need to protect the floor; use drop clothes to cover all the areas of the floor to protect it from paint splashes and drops; if you’re not planning to paint wood trim, skirting boards, and doors, then you need to protect them with the masking tape.
Inspecting For Damages And Repairing Cracks And Holes
Next job, dust off the walls and ceilings and clean visible dirt off; once you’ve done that, it’s time to fix holes and cracks on walls and ceilings; any old screws and nails you don’t need in the walls, pull them out. To fix all those holes and cracks in the walls, you’d need a filler and tape; use the filler to fix damaged areas, and for bigger holes and cracks, I recommend using special mesh tape, which will prevent cracking that area in the future. Use the decorator’s caulk to fix cracks in the corners and on top of the skirting boards if needed.
Once the filler on the walls is dry, sand it down with sandpaper; make sure to wear a dust mask to protect your lungs.
House Painters in Cork how to choose the right paint
Now that your rooms are ready for painting, you’d need a 2.5-inch paint brush for cutting in, a 9-inch roller for rolling the walls and ceilings, 2.5 and 10-liter paint scuttles.
If you’re changing the color of your rooms, you’d have to apply 2 coats of paint on the walls; if the walls are new, you’d have to use a primer on them first. You’d need about 5 liters of wall paint for standard room size and about 2 liters of ceiling paint for each room. My personal choice is Dulux paint which is very good quality and not the most expensive one in the shop; if you’re on a budget, buy the paint in Woodies; sometimes they have reasonable offers, and for people who can afford to spend a little bit more on paint, I’d recommend Colourtrend which is excellent quality paint too.
For the woodwork and trim, you have a choice of oil-based paints and water-based paint; before you buy that paint, you need to find out what kind of paint was used on your woodwork before oil-based or water-based; this is very important as you can’t apply water-based paint on top of oil-based paint it’s not going to bond properly and might start peeling off later.
Residential House Painter in Cork how to paint interior walls
As an interior house painter in Cork, I always recommend starting your painting with the ceilings; once the ceiling is done, you can start painting the walls using the roller to apply paint, and after that, use a brush to finish the areas you couldn’t get with the roller. Once the first code of paint is done, give it a couple of hours to dry; depending on the time of the year and temperature, it could take between 2 to 4 hours, after that apply your second coat of paint, then let it dry and look at the results if you’re happy with the results to start working on the trim, doors and skirting boards.
Pro tip: If your ceilings have water stains or mold on them, you have to prime them with oil-based or shellac-based primer; otherwise, paint won’t cover those stains; my personal choice is Zinsser primer.
Interior Painter in Cork how to paint doors and skirting boards
If your doors and skirting boards are brand new and have never been painted before, you’d have to use a primer; first, I’d recommend water-based primer and paint, which has no strong adore and dries very fast; you could apply two coats of water-based paint, in a day. However, if your woodwork was painted with oil-based paint, you have to use the same paint again for better results; I recommend Dulux paints, with good quality and wouldn’t break your pocket.
To start painting doors, get your 2.5-liter paint scuttle, add a little bit of paint, and use a 4-inch foam roller; it’ll get the job done faster and leave a smooth surface; in areas you can’t reach with the roller. Use a small paintbrush.
Remember to use gloves to protect your hands from oil-based paint, as cleaning it off is hard afterward.
Also, remember to keep the doors open for a few days, especially after you use oil-based paint; it takes a long time for the paint to cure, so if you don’t want to damage your paint, don’t close the doors.
P.S. If you want to know how to paint the front door, you can find the information about it on the exterior house painter in Cork page.
Interior House Painter in Cork how to paint the staircase
Many houses in Cork still have old-fashioned varnished staircases, and if you’re thinking about giving your staircase a fresh new look and painting it, there are a few things you need to know.
Step 1: Protect the carpet on your stairs; once you’ve done that, you need to sand every inch of your staircase with sandpaper, allowing a better bonding with the primer; yes, you will have to prime it before applying paint on it.
Once sanding is done, get a damp cloth and clean the surface of your staircase very well.
Step 2: Priming the staircase; my personal choice of primers is Zinsser oil-based or shellac-based, which can be used with any pain oil-based and water-based; it might have a strong odor, but once it’s dry, the smell is going to disappear, and it dries very fast.
Step 3: Applying the first coat of paint, I prefer to give the primer 24 hours to dry and start painting the staircase the next day. When you paint, be careful not to apply too much paint on the woodwork; otherwise, you will end up with rundowns. If you’re using water-based paint, you can apply a second coat in 4 hours.
Depending on the color of your staircase and your paint, you might need to apply between 2 to 5 coats of paint to achieve a perfect finish.
Professional Painter in Cork how to paint the front door
The problem with the front doors is you can only leave them open for a short time, which means you can’t use oil-based paint on them because it takes forever to dry. I recommend painting your front door early in the morning. That way, you have a whole day for the paint to dry, and then you can close it for the nighttime.
To prepare the door, you first need to sand it down with sandpaper; then, clean it with a damp cloth. Your next step is to prime the door and give it plenty of time to dry; after that, you can apply 1 or 2 coats of paint until you achieve the desired finish.
House Painter And Decorator in Cork How to paint over wallpaper
Yes, you can paint over the wallpaper, but I wouldn’t say I like to do that; the best way is to strip the wallpaper off the walls. In that way, you have clean walls that you can paint, and the finish will look much better. Someone might say that stripping the wallpaper off the walls is a lot of work, but it is not. All you have to do is pull the top layer of your wallpaper off the walls, then grab yourself a bucket with warm water and a sponge, wet the sponge in the bucket of water, and rub it on the walls to make the underlayer of your wallpaper wet, leave it like that for 10 minutes. Then you’ll be able to scrape the rest of the wallpaper off the wall very quickly; after that use the same sponge and water to wash the walls; once the walls are dry, they’re ready for painting.
But if you still decide to paint the wallpaper, I advise you to use a Zinsser oil-based primer first, and then once it’s dry, apply 2 coats of paint.
Interior House Painter in Cork how to clean your painting gear
To clean your brushes and rollers after painting, use the kitchen sink and warm water; if you use oil-based paint, clean your brush with white spirit.
Now that you have finished your project you can relax and enjoy your new freshly painted home which I’m sure will look fabulous.
If after reading this article you think that all this will take a lot of work and you don’t feel like doing all that or maybe you don’t have time to do the whole house yourself, which will take a good bit of time, then you can hire the interior house painter in Cork which will save you a lot of time and headache.
