Your home should reflect your personality and give you the freedom to unleash your creative flair.

Painting a room is the perfect opportunity for this and to refresh the look and feel of your home.

Here’s the steps we recommend taking when painting a wall or room.

Estimated Time

An hour to a day (24 hours)

• Allow approx. 20 minutes for standard sized wall (approx. 4m²)

• Allow a weekend to paint the entire bedroom

What you're going to need

• Interior wall paint

• Canvas drop cloths

• Painter’s masking tape

• Angled paint brush

• Roller Frame 230 or 270mm width

• 9-12mm nap roller cover (matching frame width)

• Paint tray (matching frame width)

We recommend safely using a step ladder and/or an extendable roller pole when painting higher walls.

If you are painting a statement or feature wall, use painter’s masking tape around all edges of the wall to create neat, clean lines.

For brush painting, pour paint into hand held pots to make the painting easier, particularly around trims and hard to reach areas.
 

Step-by-step guide

1. Before you begin, make sure you prepare the wall for painting to achieve the best finish.

2. When painting any room, we always recommend painting from the top, down.

3. Start with your ceilings if you need to paint them too. Read the how to paint a ceiling article.

4. Once you’ve prepped your walls and painted your ceilings, it’s time to begin!

5. Determine the paint colour for your wall. Review our colour charts at your local Bristol store or check out our paint colours section. Remember to consider colours you’ve selected for your doors, trim and ceilings when making your choice. If you need help choosing colour, book a free Colour Consultation.

6. Our Paint Calculator will help you find out how much paint you need for your walls.

7. Once you've decided and bought your paint, stir the paint thoroughly.

8. Start with the edges of the wall using a technique called cutting-in. Partially load the angled paint brush in paint and remove any excess.

9. Place the angled brush at the edge of the wall. Hold it like a pencil, placing some pressure on it. Begin by painting towards the top corner and working down towards the bottom.

10. Use smooth strokes and cut-in to corners. Working from the corners out, will create a build-up of paint and a less than ideal finish. Cut-in all wall edges and then move onto rolling.

11. Stir remaining paint in the can thoroughly before pouring into a paint tray.

12. Dip half the roller into the paint tray, then roll back and forth in the tray to get an even coat of paint around the roller. Tap each side of the roller on the sides of the paint tray to remove any excess paint.

13. Take the roller to the wall using a pole, making sure the roller is parallel to the surface.

14. Paint the wall using either a W or M technique, starting a roller's width out from the edge of the wall, and rolling from mid-height towards the ceiling, and then down towards the skirting. Each time this step is completed you should have enough paint on the roller to cover about a 1 meter width of the wall.

15. After completing half the standard wall, reapply the roller over any already painted areas, to remove excess paint and track marks for an even finish.

16. Repeat these steps for each 1 metre width section of the wall until the entire wall is completed.

17. Make sure you wait a minimum of 2 hours before painting a second coat, and remember to allow the second coat to dry completely.

18. Once your walls are completely dry, paint the doors, trims and window frames. We have an article on how to paint a door to walk you through this too.