If you’re painting your home, a professional finish should be smooth and free of streaks. The finish should be consistent. There should not be paint marks let on door frames and skirting. A test to see if it’s a job well done is to shine a flashlight at the wall. The aim of this is to not find lots of obvious brush stroke marks.

I have included below some tips to help you achieve that professional finish.

Hire A Professional

Probably the easiest way to get a professional finish when painting your home is to hire a professional. You can look at painter and decorator prices and see if it works with your budget. Otherwise, you will have to look at the DIY option. If that’s the case, the following tips will help you get your desired finish.

Take Your Time

When painting your home don’t rush the process. A decent effort will take considerable time and sufficient preparation. Otherwise, you can end up with not enough coverage of paint, rough patches on the wall or very obvious drip marks. All of which will ruin any chance of achieving a professional finish.

Prepping The Walls

Freshly Plastered

If you have freshly plastered walls, make sure they are completely dry before you attempt to paint them. This can take four weeks, so you have to be patient. If you rush in to quickly then you will end up with paint that peels.

When your happy its dried out you then apply a mist coat. This is a mixture of watered down emulsion. Usually ten parts paint to one part water. The purpose of the mist coat is to seal the wall.

Sugar Soap

This is a useful product to remove grease and dirt off walls. Just don’t forget to wash it off the walls afterwards. I think I skipped that stage on my last paint job so didn’t get rid of all that residue.

Filler

It is very important you have a smooth surface to work with when aiming for a professional finish. Use a filler in any cracks in the wall.

Primer

You can use a primer especially if you’re planning on changing the colour of the paintwork. For example if you want to have a different bold colour for your feature wall. It’s not necessary if you’re sticking to a similar colour.

However, a primer can help in other situations too. A primer can help the paint colour last longer, it gives you a smoother surface to work with and will help absorb the paint more evenly.

The Right Equipment

You need to make sure you have all the right equipment if you have any hope of achieving a professional finish.

Extension Pole

An extension pole is useful for hard to reach places. We had to get one of those for when we last painted as we have such high ceilings.

Decorating Tape

Stock up on decorating tape to protect your skirting and doorframes. But be careful what you buy, we found some products better than others. The first one we got pulled the paint off. This can also happen if you move the tape off too quickly or wait too long to do it. So, it might actually have been down to me rather than the product!

Paintbrushes

The paintbrushes you use will play a big part in achieving that all important professional finish. Spend a little bit more for better quality and also be careful with cleaning them.

We have had brushes that lost bristles whilst we painted and then ended up with them stuck in the wall. Apparently, this is down to cleaning the brushes, if you washed them in hot water the glue can melt, and the bristles fall out.

Technique

Start with the ceiling first as otherwise you can get paint on your walls.

I always do the cutting in of the walls next then usually grab a roller for the rest. You should not stop when you start painting a wall, otherwise you can end up with lap marks from where the previous paint has already dried.

In Conclusion

Hopefully now you are feeling a bit more confident that you can achieve that professional finish when painting your home.