Tips for working and choosing suitable colors

Painting walls is not a taboo topic for many, but if things go as we don’t want, our walls become a matter of dissatisfaction. With that, we have prepared a few tips on how to easily and with little effort paint your walls.

When coloring, take care of the following:

–Check the substrate
Before starting work, it is necessary to check the adhesion of the substrate. To find out what kind of surface you are dealing with, do a test with a little water.
Dampen a sponge or cloth with a little water and wipe the surface to be painted. If you find color on your sponge or fabric, you are dealing with chalk paint or mineral paint. If you do not find any residue, your substrate consists of dispersion or paint.

–If you paint over the existing colors
Before painting, the surfaces must be cleaned of loose parts. It is best to sweep thoroughly with a broom (remove larger loose surfaces with a metal spatula).
if there are already dispersion paints, mineral paints, lime paints and grouting materials on the surface, you should always
pre-treat the surface with an emulsion or primer (drying time 6-8 hours).
All colors can be used on dispersions. If your surface consists of paint, you must sand it with 40-60 grit sandpaper.

–Fill minor damages
Minor damage to the plaster can be repaired by filling with plaster or quick-drying plaster. It is best to scrape holes and cracks with a trowel or screwdriver to remove any loose plaster.
The substrate must be clean, solid and dry. Then lightly moisten the cracks and fill the hole with the mixed filler (ready-to-use fillers do not need to be mixed).
As the filler shrinks and sinks as it dries, it should be reapplied after about half an hour of drying time. Finally, you can smooth out any unevenness on the dry surface with fine sandpaper.

–Fill larger cracks
Larger cracks must be reinforced with joint tape. The crack is scraped and moistened with water. Then a layer of filler (smooth mass) is applied and a connecting strip (a thin strip of glass fibers) is laid over it in the longitudinal direction of the crack.
Apply another thin layer of smoothing compound and lightly scratch the surface with a trowel to smooth it. After the stain has dried, you can lightly sand it with fine sandpaper.
After the surface has been properly prepared, allow the surface to dry thoroughly.

–Important rules when painting
Prepare the paint according to the manufacturer’s instructions (note: always mix the paint well!). Protect non-painting areas with masking tape. Do not dip the brush or roller too deeply into the paint. Close the container well after use.

These are the 3 biggest mistakes when painting walls:

The first mistake: the edges stand out
Immediately after the wall dries, you suddenly realize that the edges and corners are different from the rest of the wall. Lay people often try to repair the edges again and hope that the differences will disappear.

The reason, however, is this: too many colors.

Brushes are usually used to paint the edges between walls. However, the brush will pick up more paint than the roller and leave more paint on the wall. The result is clear: the edges look different because they have more color. However, avoiding this common mistake is easy.

Solution: First paint the edges as usual with a brush. Then you have to use a small roller to smooth the paint on the edges, that is, spread it out. As a result, the edges then have the same amount of color as the rest of the wall and are no longer noticeable. Finished.

Another mistake: stripes on large surfaces
Large surfaces such as walls and ceilings are particularly prone to streaking. After painting, you can see the traces of the paint roller and the transitions of individual strips that were created during painting.

Cause: A common cause of visible streaks is that you paint too slowly and the paint dries too quickly. When you start the next strip, the previous one has already dried. The result: streaks appear.

Solution: It is best to paint smaller surfaces in one pass. This is faster and the wall is automatically painted more evenly.

You should keep a steady pace when painting, as this way you will always apply the same amount of paint.
In addition, you should always paint with an overlap, so that one strip overlaps the other. Streaks are avoided when the paint is spilled “wet on wet”. In other words: when you start the second strip, the first must not be dry yet.
And the most important thing: always keep the windows and doors closed while painting. Due to the draft, the paint on the wall dries too quickly and unevenly.

The third mistake: working with a different paint manufacturer.
The color is not the same color. When it comes to renovation, we have to make sure that we have a sufficient amount of paint from the same manufacturer, because this is the only way to achieve the same shade on the wall.
One layer of paint is usually not enough if it is applied to an unevenly primed surface.