Tips for Painting Drywall

You have a clean slate. A room has been redone and you have fresh, new drywall up on the walls, but now you have to figure out how to paint the walls. If you use regular paint on the drywall it will take you quite a few coats to keep the drywall from soaking up all the paint. This will take you many hours to many days to accomplish. It is much easier to take care of than you might think.

The first thing you need to do is to make sure you have mudded the walls, which means you have used plaster to cover the nail holes and the cracks between the pieces of drywall. After you have plastered the walls then you need to sand the walls, otherwise you will end up with lumps in your walls and uneven spots. The paint will also have a harder time adhering to the surface of the wall.

The next step is to use a primer for the walls. This will help keep the paint from soaking into the drywall and save you many hours of backbreaking work and it will save you some money also. Your paint or hardware store will let you know which type and color of primer would work best with the color you choose for your walls. After you have done a nice coat of primer on the walls, wait for it to dry and then if you think it needs another coat apply an additional coat of primer to the walls. This is especially helpful if you are trying to cover a stain on the wall.

You have the primer on the walls; your next step is to paint the room. If you are going to use a different color for the trim then it works to apply that first and wait for it to dry. After it dries then you can tape off the edges and paint the walls. Wait for the walls to dry and you might need to put on a second coat.

After you are done putting the second coat of paint on the walls and the paint has dried, then put your room back together and enjoy your new space.