Five Easy Painting Tips

Painting is a chore, there are no ifs, ands or buts about it.  Use these five easy painting tips to make life a little easier while you work!

1. When using a paint tray, poke several “drain” holes before you pour your paint out of the can. Use a nail or screw and poke several holes all the way around the rim.  This provides a way for the paint to drain back into the can.

2.  Lay a towel over the lid (that drapes down over the sides of can) before you put the lid back on- to ensure that paint doesn’t splatter all over!

3.  I like to use a 5 gallon bucket when painting for several reasons.

• If you have several gallons of paint, you can mix them all together so you don’t run the risk of one can being slightly “off color” if you paint out of one can and then another…
• You can paint right out of the bucket.  No pouring into a tray (or any of the dripping that comes with that).  You simply hang a grate on the inside, dip and roll off the excess inside the bucket!
• You can store your roller cover in the bucket with the paint.  Make sure your cover is submerged in the paint to keep it wet.

Don’t store your metal grate inside the paint, it will rust out!

4.  I store my mini rollers in gallon cansof primer and paint for cabinets.  Just fish it out with the roller bar and slide it into the hole nice and slow! It will be full of paint and if you shove it in, it will splatter paint all over!

5.  If you’re working out of quarts, your roller won’t fit inside the can so plastic wrap (or plastic bags if you’re out of wrap) will keep your roller for a few days.  Just wrap it tight and seal out the air.