After The Move: Painting Your Home

1. Planning Your Work
2. Hiring Help
3. Getting Started—Prepping The Room
4. Final Tips

It is very rare that any new home is perfect, or exactly the way you would like it to be. This often means that there might be a few renovations before you declare your moving experience to be finished. Fortunately, one of the easiest (and least expensive) types of remodeling that can be done is painting. This is also a great way to give each room its own personal touch.

Planning Your Work

As with any other type of major project, taking a little time to plan things out will pay big dividends. It is also rather easy to get ideas and formulate plans for how you want everything to look. Here are some resources:

• Magazines: Take a look through some dedicated to home remodeling. The pictures will often give you a very clear idea as to what the end result will look like.
• Paint Stores: In addition to supplies, these places can often give you some great ideas and professional advice. Be sure to check out swaths for sample colors (take them home if possible and actually see what it will look like in different light and times of the day.
• Online: Tons of websites are dedicated to this sort of thing. Just be sure to look at several in order to get a good variety of options and ideas.

Hiring Help

One of your biggest decisions here might be whether or not to hire a team of professional painters or do the job yourself. Obviously, anyone considered should be thoroughly researched including a search on the Better Business Bureau website.

Professional painters will usually bring their own equipment and supplies and should be well versed in a lot of different techniques. In many cases, they can even be big help in color and style decision. If you choose to do this yourself, just understand that you will need to obtain all the supplies and the job will probably take longer. Then again, it could be a fun project and the whole family can get in on the act.

Getting Started—Prepping The Room

After all of the style and color decisions have been made and you are ready to get started (if professionals have been hired, they will likely have already done this step), you need to prepare the room. Start by:

• Moving small furniture and personal items to another room.
• Use tarps or heavy, old blankets to cover the floor—These should not be coverings that you really care about getting dirty because they will.
• Cover any furniture or items that can't be moved—Use canvas or plastic coverings for this.
• Be sure to protect the legs of any furniture—This can be done by taping on some newspaper or even cardboard. The same goes for those little flaps of fabric on couches the reach toward the floor.

Final Tips

Be sure to remove all of the light switches and outlet covers. If you want to paint them, it is best to do so separately, while they are not attached to the wall. Put strips of tape over any exposed wires, especially if children might be walking around the area. Move any plants out of the room, since the fumes will end up preventing them from getting the proper level of carbon dioxide they need.