How to Prepare a Room for Painting

This sounds obvious but if you are planning on decorating an entire room try to remove the furniture first. You will have a much better experience later if you can move around the room easily and you are much less likely to damage any belongings if they can be temporarily stored in another part of the house.

It is not always possible to remove all the furniture from the room. You can instead move the furniture to the centre of the room and cover it with a Dust Sheet.

Using a Seriously Good Dust Sheet to cover the floor is the best way to prepare a room for painting. The polythene back on this dust sheet prevents spills from going through, while the cotton top traps dust, preventing it from ruining the paint finish, it is also less slippery than the polythene dust sheets.

Tape the dust sheet down to the floor using some Essentials Masking Tape to stop it skidding around. Then use some Seriously Good UV Tape to attach the dust sheet to the wall. This will keep everything clean.

If you are painting skirting boards tape the dust sheet to the carpet. You can do this by having the masking tape attached to the skirting board with a small up turned lip. Now using your fingers pull the carpet back and push the tape down. When you let go of the carpet it should spring back a few millimetres under the skirting board. Repeat this process to protect your carpets.

You might have some wallpaper on your walls already which needs to be removed before painting or re-papering. There are a few different types of wallpaper and each might need a slightly different method to remove. We recommend following our guide, how to remove wallpaper, for a less stressful, dare I say, fun experience.

Before you start painting check the wall for any holes or cracks. It can be tempting to try and paint over the cracks, and this can work in the short term but the best thing you can do for the long term is to fix the problem before you start. Follow our guides, how to fix a crack and how to fill a hole for more info on how to fix these problems.

When everything is clear use some sugar soap and a Seriously Good Microfibre Cloth to clean the surface especially around light switches and plug sockets. These are the areas where you will usually come into contact with the wall.

Now you’re ready for painting, try our how to paint a wall, how to paint a ceiling and how to paint a skirting board for help on what to do next.