4 professional painter hacks to make your next project easier

painting tricks that will help

make

your

paint job faster, cleaner and look better. Okay, this sounds good to me, Sharon, I think if it saves us some time or

make

s things a little

easier

, it's absolutely good to share. I totally agree with that. It can be a big job to paint so getting some of this stuff out of the way is great and you know I have a lot of painting tricks that can help us save time because I know it's a really important thing but also put away our tools you know we invested in these great tools, you want to save them, you want to protect them and you also want to avoid some problems, so I have some tricks for that too, ooh, let's even be clean about it.

Well, what's

your

first trick? So when it comes to taping off the entire room by painting around the molding, sorry, to prevent areas you don't want to paint from getting painted, it's important to do it safely if you have handles and hardware. and those kinds of things that you haven't eliminated, however, you can save time, as I showed you in my last segment, if you can intervene now, I know this is not for everyone. Interrupting can be complicated, but you can do it yourself. a very good quality ankle girdle brush so it's tapered and it's tapered on the end and thin so you can get a nice straight line which will save you from gluing the ceiling and areas where you might end up doing it anyway , but here's something else. that you can use another great tool, these cropping guides.

I don't think I love using them because I always end up putting too much paint on the edge, but I have a rag on hand, you put it on a In an area like this you can paint the trim, but I find them great if you have a textured ceiling or a rug or something like that, you can push it down and that allows you to paint the trim without trying to tape the carpet down. which is a real pain in the ass, the drywall trowel works, these little plastic putty knives can work in a pinch, but what I have found works great is stealing your kids file folders from school if you have a good heavy one, a good acetate one like This fits very well and again, the same thing, don't put too much paint on it, just pretend like you're etching, so you're careful and then there you have a very nice straight line, okay, like this I also like the

next

one. one, you have a tip on how you can get a really sharp edge with

painter

's tape.

Yeah, okay, so yeah, we're just talking about not using

painter

's tape, but you know what we need, bring painter's tape when you try it. To get a really crisp line, I'm sure if you're doing blocks of color, which we talk about a lot on the show, maybe doing an accent wall or even stripes, you want to get a super crisp line, now it's going to be a little tricky to see. here, but I have a trick that allows for perfect, perfect straight lines, even with really good painter's tape, if you're painting on a wall that's been painted 20 times, like most of the walls in my house, they're a little rough. , so there's always a little spot where the tape has a gap and you end up with what's called bleed and you can see these little spots and it can be really annoying, especially when there's a graphic color change, so what you want to do is use quality painter's tape well, I'm sure that's your first tip, but then you have to put the base coat color on the edge of the tape first, so in this case I used a color called inner peach on the base, you can see I put a little bit of that on I let it dry so I did that before you let it dry just to seal that little gap that you can't see so the color that will come through if anything is your base coat.

I'll be invisible, okay? Then you've already done it. Some people use silicone. I've seen it on the tick-tock. I think it's great, but I don't want to go out and buy silicone if I don't need it. I find that if you have the base coat color it works perfect, so once it's dry, you put whatever color you're using, the accent color, the color block, you put it in here. I'm going to put some on the side I used as well. I didn't use my base coat color and then we'll remove it and again you might need to put on two coats if you were doing a full wall and you could even roll it up, but just to get an idea, so we'll remove it. and you can see that the line is really super super straight on this side because I put that base coat underneath, that makes a lot of sense, yeah, like the first coat that makes sense, okay, your

next

trick is about the dreaded brush cleanup, so favor. help us yeah and actually tape two you shouldn't do this okay when you remove the tape roll it up so you don't make a big mess like I did all over my laundry okay clean up your mess so you.

If you have the brush, it's wet, the best trick to prevent it or the best trick to clean it is not to clean it, okay, clean it at the end when you're completely done with the

project

, but in the meantime, if I'm just going to do it. If you wait a couple of hours for a second coat you need to make sure it doesn't dry on the brush or you will destroy your brushes, so this is where you can use them. We all have them in the kitchen like a bag of bags, yeah, okay, so use, reuse some of those grocery bags.

This also works great for rollers. Stick it inside, seal the air out, and keep it there temporarily if you know you're going to do this tomorrow. seal it all up and put it in the refrigerator but otherwise it works fine just for a few hours or even you know until the next day but here's a really cool one I discovered if you're wearing gloves anyway which you should not always but you should , you should use one that doesn't have a hole in it, but if you're using your painter's gloves and even the little plastic ones, you can turn it inside out and voila, oh, use your glove should be like that plastic bag so you don't waste extra plastic .

Tie it with a rubber band, same thing, and then when you're ready to get back to the

project

, you can carefully remove it. put your hands in there and that's it and that's great and we all have latex gloves hanging around these days because we all need them so they're very clever they're hacked let's talk about putting away the brushes eh there you go. I have a trick for that yeah and this is a really fun trick and I'm sure my paint stores will say this isn't a trick Sharon but keeping the packaging sounds crazy but if you keep the packaging you can do it later Of having done it.

I did a good job cleaning your brushes because I always buy very good quality brushes because they can last a long time. Clean them really well, but then it's important to keep them nice and stiff, so put them back in their usual packaging. a little wax finish is the best you can do, but if you threw the package away and didn't think about it at first, then you can do a few different things, you can use duct tape, you could wrap it with duct tape just to keep it rigid. I used parchment paper because sometimes in our house we bake more than we paint, so parchment paper will work.

The idea is to use something that is rigid, wrap a rubber band around it and then like that. It will store very well and be ready for you when you start your next painting project. Oh, all the great advice is amazing, listen before you go to break. In fact, we have a question for you. Sharon Viewer. Suzanne writes. We bought our house. A few months ago and I painted most of the walls with Benjamin Moore Fog and Cloverdale rice paper in the living room. I would plan to paint the brick fireplace, but now I'm not sure what color my initial thought would recommend.

It was a warm white and added a chunky wood shelf, Now Sharon, this is a very popular question and you just did a project like this right before the holidays, right? Yes painting the fireplace is a very popular project when it comes to brick especially it can make a big difference so I saw the living room it's beautiful I love the furniture she painted all the original oak trim so It's obviously trying to lighten and brighten them, so I think I'm going to paint that fireplace, I think the texture is gorgeous, but it's a little busy with all the different brick colors, so I think you'll love it when you paint it.

A couple of things, I was looking at a creamy white, like you suggested, that would be great, great. An option like floral white would be a good option, but I was also thinking you could go a little darker. I love the color of your chairs, that pretty heavy fabric, so maybe something more like down white or edge cone gray from the historic palette. It will be a little darker, a little more of a putty color, but it will still be clean and won't be as distracting when it's all one color. I love the idea of ​​lining that horizontal brick detail with some wood, I think that'll really do it. give it a more modern twist so you have to send us a photo if you finish it yes it will look absolutely amazing and sharon we are so lucky to have you thank you for all your great tips and awesome tricks. good