Painting Tips

Budget your time

Set aside a decent amount of time. It can take at least six hours to do one coat in a 4m x 5m room, and two to three days to paint an entire room from start to finish.

1. Buying Paint

To work out how much paint you need to buy for a room, measure up each wall and multiply the height by the width. Add up the areas of each wall for a total. If one wall is 3m x 4m, making 12 square metres, and the adjacent wall is 3m x 2m, which makes six square metres, the area to paint is 18 square metres. A litre of paint covers up to 16 square metres for one coat. An average bedroom needs at least eight litres of paint for a smooth finish, costing about $105.

Choosing Colour
Colour trends come and go with the seasons, but safe choices are neutrals such as creams and whites that complement changing furnishings. For feature walls, 2009 colour forecasters predict purples, aquas and primary colours to be trendsetters.
TIP: Take a paint sample home to try on the wall and check how natural and artificial light affect the colour and intensity, and how it complements the furniture.

Select a finish
The type of paint affects the finish.

Bedrooms & living areas
Walls suit low-sheen or flat acrylic if they’re in bad shape.
Ceilings are best with flat acrylic or speciality ceiling paints.
Timber trim can take gloss acrylic trim or oil-based enamel in gloss, semi-gloss or low sheen.

Laundries & bathrooms
Walls are best with low-sheen acrylic or semi-gloss acrylic with mould-control additives.
Ceilings should have low-sheen acrylic or semi-gloss acrylic with mould-control additives.
Timber trim can take gloss acrylic trim or oil-based enamel in gloss, semi-gloss or low sheen.

2. Equipment

Big areas are more easily covered using rollers, while brushes are best used around the edges, on corners, trim and any woodwork.

Use a roller on walls, choosing one 230 to 270mm wide to cover as much area as possible. Nap is the common measurement, which refers to the pile length. A short nap is 6mm, for ceilings, smooth surfaces and high-gloss paints. Medium nap is 12mm, for walls and flat, low-sheen or semi-gloss paints on uneven surfaces. Long nap is 20mm, for rough surfaces.

Using a prep coat
Prep coats protect and prepare the surface for the coloured top coat. Primers adhere to timber surfaces and have stain-inhibiting tannin blockers, while undercoat is ideal for preparing plasterboard. Most prep coats now save time and money as a three-in-one sealer, primer and undercoat, and can be tinted to match the top coat.