Painting Tips

Painting Tips

Painting this weekend? These steps will make painting that bit easier:

1. Preparation.It's always worth spending some time planning and prepping your paint job - get all the materials you need - paint, paint brushes, rollers and so on. You'll save loads of time!2. Quality.Choose your paint wisely and bare in mind the phrase buy it cheap buy it twice! When purchasing paint look for the 'Trade' version of the brand. You will get a much thicker and better quality paint for your money! Our go to is Leyland Trade paint, especially using our colour match service bringing you a selection of over 16,000 colours!3. Brushes.Investing in good quality brushes will only improve the quality of your painting.4. Edges.Paint corners, edges and around skirting boards before moving onto the main walls. Only do this one wall at a time to avoid to big a gap in drying time between your edges and your filling in!5. Roll with it!
You will likely benefit from a larger 9" roller great for large areas and a smaller 4" roller for those arkward areas beside doors and radiators!6. Watch those drips!Always cover up furniture and carpets to avoid the nightmare of getting marks everywhere, even the most careful of painters will still likely cause a flick or a speckle somewhere! Watch out for how much you dip your brush into the paint tin - dip the bottom half of the brush into the tin and then remove the thick against the edge of the tin to avoid having too much on your brush. 7. Technique.Painting in letters is said to a great painting technique for large areas. For example, paint a 'W' with a roller and fill it in with an 'M' for even coverage.8. Window worries.If you get any paint on your windows, don’t panic! Wait for it dry and use a paint scraper to remove it.9. Keep brushes fresh.Covering brushes with a damp cloth, cling film or a food bag in between coats can help prevent them from drying out.10. Keep it clean.

Cleaning as you go will save you time, especially as it's the worst bit! Keep a damp cloth to hand for wiping away any mistakes and try to keep your work area clean to avoid trodding any mess into the rest of your home!

The Golden Rules of Interior Decorating

There are three key golden rules to interior decorating, simple but effective and when in place you can transform your home and avoid any decor fails!

Grey Lounge Inspiration photo cred dogbreedspicture.net

70/20/10

1. The 70 / 20 / 10 Rule for a balanced colour scheme is simple and important to remember!
2. 
   
3. 1) Keep 70% of the elements (say walls & floors) as one colour, 
4. 2) Then add 20% in a second colour (fabrics) 
5. 3) Finally add 10% in an accent (accessories)
6. 
   

Grey, Mustard & White Kitchen Inspo photo cred pinterest

For patterns:

1. The Pattern Rule when mixing patterns, use large with medium OR medium with small. Never large with small! Also pick prints that share a colour in common.
2. 
   
3. Finally:
4. Always add a surprise! Your room should have a focal point whether its a feature wall, a piece of art or a piece of furniture!

Designing a Mood Board | Decorating Centre Online

Before decorating spend time gathering together samples of your favourite pictures of inspirational room designs. This is a mood board :)

Using a moodboard will help to collect your thoughts around designing your scheme. Collect paint and fabric swatches and pictures from magazines, books or even pinterest! Creating a moodboard is a great way to visualise how a final room will look and will help you to decide which colours compliment or clash with eachother.

Sample Mood Board photocred: Pinterest

Here we have simplified it into three easy steps...

• Choose your base colour. Whether its flooring or a wall, the base colour will be the largest area of colour in your room so place a generous sample of it onto your board!
• Add an accent tone. Want to try a dramatic contrast? Or an accent just a few tones away from your base colour? Use your moodboard to play with options and layer it with swatches of fabric, scraps of wallpaper and paint colour charts.
• Find the right accessories These will really set the tone in your room - go for ones that share an accent colour and stick to a single theme. Don't mix styles or your finished scheme will look messy rather than effortlessly eclectic.

Some final top tips...

• Lay out your samples in the general order of the room eg carpet at the bottom. Think about what you're using the room for, it may sound obvious but you won't be able to relax in a riot of clashing colours.
• The size of each sample should reflect how much space it will take up in reality eg have a much larger piece of paint swatch than cushion fabric. This way you can get an idea of how colours and textures will work together.

Sample Mood Board photocred Pinterest

Hopefully this helps pull your ideas into some kind of plan for your room! We would love to see how you get on!