Interior Painting: A guide for a Quick and Professional Job

     As a rehabber or landlord, you're inevitably going to need to do some painting, or pay someone dearly for doing it for you. I'm very good friends with a professional painter who is rapidly growing his business so not only do I get a GREAT discount on paint, I get REAL advice on how to paint like a PRO. As a disclaimer, he and his crew do most of their work the old fashioned way (by hand), which if done properly can look better than an airless spray job, but really, only to those that are in the painting field will notice. For a rental or flip, I personally recommend using a quality airless sprayer.

Equipment Required
Airless Paint Sprayer (quality, not cheap) with power roller attachment (and power roller cover)
Paint (in 5 gallon buckets) PRIMER, CEILING PAINT, TRIM PAINT, TOP COAT
6" puddy knife
10-12" skim coat puddy knife
drywall sanding blocks
(orbital sander, mouser sander, belt sander may also be necessary depending on the condition of things)
drywall patch tape
drywall or plaster MUD
Cheap masking tape
Blue Masking tape
Plastic drop clothes (get a lot)
paint sticks
paint hat
respirator
glasses
halogen tree lights & floor lights
4" tapered paint brush & cutting cups


I typically do a whole house at once, but you can apply these methodologies to one room. However, if you do one at a time in succession you will be spending unnecessary time on later clean ups. Follow my instructions to totally redo the interior of a house in a timely manner.

PREP:
The first thing you need to decide on is the flooring. Is it OK or does it need replaced? If you are not planning on replacing it and it does not need any refinishing, then mask it entirely. This can be done with cheap rolls of 3' wide masking paper, make sure to have plenty of overlap and tape seams with the cheap yellow masking tape. Make sure you use a real drop cloth as well where ever the sprayer & paint will be located. If you're planning on taking up the carpet, do it now.

     The prep is the most important part of the job, and it takes the most time. Use the halogen tree lights to really light up the space so you can see all the imperfections.

1. Remove all hardware / nails / frame hooks / tape / loose paint / outlet covers / switch plates from ALL THE WALLS, CEILINGS, DOORS, TRIM, (ie everywhere) NOTE: if there is wall paper, you'll need to remove it all now, use the "paper shark" and get a 2 gallon garden sprayer loaded with hot water and wallpaper remover (DIF works good). Score the paper using the paper shark and soak down the wall (one wall at a time) let it soak, and go to town removing wallpaper, scrape finish with puddy knife, do not damage the plaster / drywall.

2. Use a razor blade to cut off anything sticking to the walls (tape, paint buggers, old drips, scum, etc.

3. Spackle all holes and skim coat needed areas use mesh drywall tape where necessary

4. Fill ALL cracks with painters caulk (in caulk gun with small hole cut) and wipe the excess off with a moist sponge. This may seem tedious, but it will really make your paint job POP!

5. Use sanding blocks to lightly sand your Spackle to a smooth finish. Really bad walls / ceilings / trim can be hit with an orbital / mouser / beltsander to before preping.
WOO HOO, you're getting there kids! Take a break, drink a beer, relax for a minute...
IF you need to refinish the hardwood floors do that now. There is a new rental floor sander that is NOT like the drum sander and can be handled easily and will not damage your floors, so fear not! Don't forget the edger to get close to the walls (I use the fein so I don't have to remove the baseboards). Get the saw dust up, get them wiped, get them stained / polyed, let it dry, AND THEN GET THEM MASKED WELL!!!!!!!
I typically use a thick paper that comes on a roll, tape it down to the perimeter (Blue tape here) and make sure all the seems are taped down (yellow tape). Also, use a cloth drop cloth for the area where the paint sprayer will be if you're worried about paint bleeding through the masking.

6. Wipe everything down with TSP water (always wear protective equipment when working with chemicals).
OK, so we're getting there, really we are!!

7. You need to mask EVERYTHING that you don't want covered with paint. For windows, start with the blue tape around the glass or vinyl, and then tape masking paper to that (yellow tape). Electrical outlets & switches should be lightly covered with bluetape as well as door knobs (if not painting the doors, cover with a plastic dropcloth and tape in place). After the masking is finished, put up a plastic drop cloth to separate the room from the rest of the house, make sure you can get in and out of it easy. I usually just staple it to the top of the frame in three spots, no one will ever see the staples later, and if you are anal you can remove them with no problem.

We're ready to SPRAY SOME PAINT!

Time to PRIME
Get your 5 gallon bucket of primer and load up the sprayer. (read all the instructions on the sprayer, I'm not getting into "how to operate your sprayer")
Blow out the primer, starting with the ceiling. Make sure the only thing in the room is the sprayer (if you have enough hose, put it outside the room). start in the corner with the sprayer pointed half on the wall, and half on the ceiling and continue across the seam until you go completely around the room. You can stop spraying between strokes. Your next stroke will be on the ceiling and will overlap your last by half (thus just hitting the ceiling with no wall). This time you only go across the ceiling in one direction, and then go back rather than around the room, that was just for the initial stroke. Make sure your spray is not too heavy or too light, there should no 'banding'. Continue to finish the ceiling. Move on to one of the walls, and finish that, then the next until you've painted the entire room with prime!
Congrats! You've done it!! Now you MUST LEAVE THE HALOGEN LIGHTS ON FOR SOME TIME TO SET THE PAINT. This is VERY IMPORTANT!!!!! I use a 2 can tree halogen and 2 floor halogens and rotate them every 10 - 20 minutes. Don't get them too close, but don't let them too far away either. A few feet is good. I would say about 2 hours is minimum. If you move them too soon or if you don't rotate, your paint will start to run. This is critical, don't rush the paint. A few hours under lights and you're all set!
Go get some fresh air while the paint settles / drys a bit.
You were wearing your respirator right?!?
Take it off outside and sip a beer, enjoy the air... it's nice right!
A job worth doing is worth doing right, right? Well if you agree with that statement, you'll want to get some ceiling paint over the primer, because the primer will yellow sooner than a good ceiling paint.
TIP #1, as you're getting close to finishing the PRIME, switch out the primer bucket with the ceiling bucket (I do this right before entering a closet while primer spraying). Now, while you're spraying the closet you will use the last of the primer in the hose, and it will kick over to ceiling paint, sweet!

Ceiling Coat:
After the paint has dried, go back and hit JUST THE CEILING with the ceiling paint. Use TIP #1 if you are going to do the trim white, switch to glossy white, but make sure you are in a closet or somewhere inconspicuous while "changing paints." I often use areas going down to the basement or up to the attic for swap outs.
TIP #2 Disguising a bad skim coat. OK, so it's your first time with this, and maybe your prep could have been better. Here is a good trick to hide some imperfections. Use a HIGH GLOSS paint as your PRIMER. It will cost you more money, but when it dries it will even out A LOT of imperfections. This can be done after the initial primer on bad areas, or as the entire prime. I usually ONLY use this tactic on bad ceilings where there was water damage that has been scraped and skimmed.
Wowzers Man, you be movin' right along...
TRIM
Are you doing two tone (really looks good kids) If so, time to spray the trim / baseboards. I use high gloss white. Again, let it all dry with the lights before moving on.
Congrats, you've made it to the:
TOP COAT
OK, first off. Top coat works best with 2 people. And it works best with the power roller attachment -sorry, can't spray anymore paint :-(
TIP # 3 CUTTING
READ THIS IF YOU WANT A PRO PAINT JOB:
Your ceiling cut MUST TOUCH THE CEILING!!!!! DO NOT STOP SHORT ON THE WALL!!!
GET PAINT ALL THE WAY UP ONTO THE CEILING ALL THE WAY AROUND. Only an 1/8 of an inch or so, not tons, but it must go up to the ceiling.
Are you in a painted room? Was it done by a pro? Do you see a wavey line when looking at the ceiling? Well then, it was not a pro, because if you take it to the ceiling, you WILL NOT SEE THIS AMATEUR WAVY LINE. Your cuts around the trim SHOULD ALSO COME ONTO THE TRIM 1/8 inch.
Work one wall at a time. Cut the ceiling, and BOTH SIDES of the corners (only on three walls in the corners) and the baseboard and the trim. Now it is time to power roll! For finishing strokes, to even the paint, DO NOT PUT PRESSURE ON THE ROLLER. Hold it lightly and start at the top corner and WITH NO PRESSURE bring it down to the bottom (careful not to get paint on ceiling or trim). overlap slightly (1 - 2 inches) and repeat across the wall. You should have a beautiful looking finish. Move to the next wall until finished.

Whew! After it all drys peel back the masking and
WOW, it looks HOT!

Now go forth and get Painty

Cheers!
Mark