Painting Walls

If you haven’t already, I hope you enter to win the Nexus 7 Tablet this week!

The last time I painted anything on a wall, I’m pretty sure it was a mural or something decorative. Any time I needed the walls basecoated, my husband did it. With Marlon gone and my chronic back pain, I’m not anticipating rolling on paint any time soon.

But that doesn’t mean I won’t share some tips with you. Not my own tips. I found someone who’s much, much better . . .

. . . someone who not only paints often and well, but writes about the best painting tutorials I’ve seen online - Brittany at Pretty Handy Girl.

My favorite painting post of hers is about my least favorite part of painting – Prep Work. But it’s well worth any time it takes to read because it’ll save you loads of time when you go to paint.

Another important factor to painted wall success is choosing the right sheen for the right room. Yes, Brittany wrote a post on choosing paint & paint sheen too. Which, once again, included tips I didn’t know.

And then you’ll be ready to paint a simple wall, right?

Nope.

I’ve painted more than my fair share of walls over the years, before and during my work as a muralist. What I would’ve given to have had Brittany’s Paint Like a Pro post before those years. I can’t tell you how many ‘do-overs’ I done did because I thought painting a wall meant simply rolling the paint on.

My husband wasn’t much better either. Sure, because he was big and really strong, he could cover a lot of square footage with the roller. But he also bought every gadget the paint store offered. blech.

Years, and many, many walls later we relied solely on our rollers and Purdy trim brushes. No self-loading roller thingmajigs. No square trim pads with little wheels that just give you little wheel paint marks. A good brush and a good roller cover.

And three posts from Pretty Handy Girl.

Now. If she’d only move to Northern California, I’d have all the ‘supplies’ I need!