Ten Tip & Tricks when Painting #gliddentesters

Well the moment you’ve all been waiting for is here, we finished Katelyn’s room today. Wohoo!! I’m so thankful to my mother and father-in-law who took my little ones over night last night so we could finish painting and decorating Katelyn’s room. Since I’ve never painted before, yup you just read that right my friends, I’ve never painted before – so… I decided to put together a few tips and tricks for you that I learned along the way. Then…. my next post will have the big reveal and pictures of the little details. I can’t wait for you all to see it!!

#1 Know Your Room: when I say this I mean take note of:

 – Whether you have flat walls or textured walls

– How big the room is (dark colors tend to make small rooms look smaller)

– Is your room, like mine visible when looking down the hallway?

– If like me, you are only painting one wall, will the color coordinate well with the other color(s) in the room?

Here’s what I did: Our daughter’s room is the first room visible when you look down our hallway so I tried to pick colors that would compliment our house and would not look out of place when you looked down our hallway. Our walls are flat so I knew that I could roll the paint on a little thicker without having it look thick and bumpy in certain areas. Since I really wanted to paint with the Deepest Aqua Glidden Brilliance color I decided to do just an accent wall so that her room would still have a large and open feel. 

#2 Prepping the Room: To avoid getting paint on any furniture you already have and to give yourself plenty of space to move about the room, I highly suggest moving furniture out of the room you are painting or, if you are working with a larger room, you can move it all to one side of the room as we did.

#3 Prepping your Supplies: Make sure you gather all your supplies before you begin. This is important so you don’t start painting and then realize you don’t have something you need. Thankfully I had made a good checklist so we had everything we needed before we started. Here’s what I recommend: drop cloth, wet paper towels in case the paint drips, 2″ diagonal paint brush, trim cup, 1.5″-2″ blue tape, roller, roller handle, and a roller brush tray.

#4 Taping Off: When taping off the room make sure to get as close to the edge as possible and tape it off straight! I had to fix the tape several times as I went because I wanted to make sure the tape was straight and in the creases properly. My hubby also suggested that when we did the taping off by our floor boards to only tape off using half of the tape and then use the other half to tape the drop cloth. That way the drop cloth doesn’t move around and cause paint to drip on the floor.

 #5: Remove Plug Socket Covers: Seriously, I would not have thought to do this, but I’m so glad my hubby did. Then I covered the rest of the exposed socket with tape. 

 #6 Paint the Trim first: Pour some paint in your trim cup, and grab your diagonal paint brush. Hold the trim cup with the palm of your hand under the handle and loosely hold the trim brush as you paint. Don’t dip the brush in all the way, just the tip of the brush. When painting the trim, paint up and down with even strokes. Go all the way around the edges right up against your trim tape. Make sure you have a wet paper towel handy.

#7 Roll the Walls: Pour paint into your paint tray. Roll your roller brush in the paint tray and make sure cover your roller in paint before you begin. I decided to put the paint on thick in hopes that I could get away with only one coat. I began by rolling paint on one side of the room and worked my way to the other side. Since the Glidden Brilliance paint begins to dry quickly, I made sure to roll from the top to the bottom of the wall before moving on. 

#8 Give Time for Paint to Dry: Once you have painted the first coat allow it to dry for 1-1.5 hours. If you see marks in the paint from the roller, you might want to consider doing a second coat. Once you’re done painting, I highly recommend giving the room 24 hours to fully dry before removing the paint tape. One of the things I love about the Glidden paint is that it dries fast. We painted around 8pm and by 8am we were able to remove the tape and start putting up the decor and put furniture back in place.

#9 Air Out the Room: Since we painted Katelyn’s room it was important to us that the room got plenty of fresh air and any paint fumes were released from the room before she came home. We left the window of her room open all night to allow the paint to dry and fumes to release.

#10: Remove the Tape: Once the paint in your room is dry, you can remove the tape and begin putting the room back together. 

Here’s a sneak peak of my daughter’s bedroom. Wanna see more? Check out my Big Reveal post.