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In this video, we're going to show you how to prepare your walls for painting. We're
going to fill any cracks or holes with filler. We're going to sand those back, we're going
to wash the walls, and we're going to show you how to mask off the area. Remember the
preparation goes a long way to producing a wonderful job.
These are some of the tools and equipment that we will need to actually paint our walls.
Of course, when we're painting, safety is paramount. We need to use a dust mask and
some goggles to protect our eyes. We also need to use some filler, to fill those cracks
and holes in the wall. That also includes a caulking compound, in this case, with a
gun. Of course, we have our various sanding sheets, floats, and block. This one's particularly
useful because it's a sponge one with sanding paper on the outside that we can actually
bend. Then, of course, we have our bucket of water with sugar soap and a sponge for
cleaning the walls down. So that's all our materials and tools that
we need. Let's talk about drop sheets. What I tend to do is I put the plastic sheet down
first. Then I put the canvas on top. The plastic sheet can be quite slippery so it's much safer
to put the canvas down and it's easier to walk on as well.
As with most walls, you'll invariably have some holes and some cracks that need to be
filled. We've got a Spakfilla here. This is a ready-made Spakfilla. You can buy a powdered
one as well and add water. All we're going to do is apply the filler like so and invariably,
we do half-moon shapes. This will take about 30 minutes to dry and therefore you can paint.
And with Spakfilla, or any type of filler, it's always a good idea to slightly overfill
the hole. There's a little bit of water in there and as that dries it will shrink a little
bit. Invariably what happens is in the joints and
corners the skirting, for example, can actually separate from the wall, so we need to fill
that. We use what's known as a caulking compound or flexible sealant and we apply it with a
gun, a silicon gun or a caulking gun. We apply that to the corner and joints. When we're
placing it, we're actually better off going in this direction. That way, by doing that,
we actually push the compound into the gap. All we are simply doing is run our finger
along the edge to smooth it out. And it's all done.
Now that we've filled in the cracks and the holes, we're actually going to sand those
back and we are going to give the wall a very light general sand. We're going to use two
types of sanding apparatus. We're going to use the sanding block, which is this one here,
or float, and the flexible sanding block. Let's get into it.
Always remember to wear your dust mask because of the dust. So when we come to the filler
we'll need to apply a little bit of elbow grease to smooth that back, but otherwise,
when it comes to the wall itself, just very long even strokes. Then when we come to the
skirting board, we can use that flexible sanding block and apply this to go around the edges
and corners. Now, of course, if you do have existing paint on your skirting board, it
will probably be a gloss. We always have to take the shine off any surface for the new
paint to take to it. Okay, we've filled the holes and we've sanded.
Now we're ready to clean the walls. We're going to use some sugar soap, sponge, bucket,
with some clean water. Probably a good idea to wear some gloves because the sugar soap
is a chemical and it may irritate your skin. All we need to is just apply a damp sponge
and just very even, smooth strokes to the wall and, as you can see, we've already picked
up quite a bit of dirt off the wall.
Now we're coming up to the masking off stage. It is important. It can be quite tedious.
It'll save the wall paint, for example, going onto the corners or the skirting board which
will save you a lot of time. Now when we apply the tapes, there's different types. If you
feel you're going to do the painting within the day, or at the most overnight, you would
probably want to use this one. If you feel you're not going to finish it off on the weekend
and you need to leave the masking tape on, then you can apply a more sensitive one. This
one's even more sensitive, which you can leave on for quite a number of weeks.
When applying the tape, it's best to apply it with a blade, as we have here. A flat blade
and actually press it onto the skirting. In this case, the skirting board. That way, it
actually stops the paint from the wall bleeding onto the skirting board, which can invariably
happen if you don't use the blade and a nice little trick is not to actually twist or turn
that onto the skirting board, but to actually leave that flapping out and then as you roll
the paint onto the wall, that will actually catch the splatter from the paint.
Now that we've finished the masking, the walls are ready to be painted and don't forget to
watch our video on how to paint
If you have any further questions, you can always pop along to Barney's Warehouse where
a team member will be more than happy to help you out.