Cottage Style Decorating

Whenever I’m thinking about painting and decorating my home, I’m reminded of the fact that few things have as much impact as painting.  You can change the whole look and feel of a room just by adding color.   If you are trying to achieve a certain look or style, the color you choose can “pull everything together” and coordinate the furniture and accessories in your room.  Painting is also very inexpensive and requires no special skills, making it perfect for the DIY’er.

Some Painting Tips to Get You Started

1. Remove as much furniture as possible and cover what can’t be moved.
2. Put down a drop cloth.  Even if you are careful, paint always seems to drip on the floor.
3. Remove wall sockets and light switch plates.  It’s difficult to paint around them and it’s so much easier to take the time to remove them than to get any paint off of them.
4. Fill any holes or imperfections with caulk.
5. Use painters tape to mask off window and door trim, ceiling and baseboards (we prefer the green FrogTape).  This is time well spent and makes a big difference.  We used to just use masking tape, but the FrogTape works so much better and is well worth the extra expense.
6. And my FAVORITE TIP.  When taking a short break from painting and you don’t want to wash your brush, just take a damp cloth or paper towel and wrap it around the brush.  Either one will keep your brush from drying out so that it will be ready when you return to painting.

Don’t do this

Here’s another tip.  Spilling paint on the carpet is NOT a good idea!

As I was watching, feeling helpless to do anything, my husband fell while coming down the ladder holding a gallon paint can.  Luckily he was OK!  And he managed to hold up the paint can while falling, but it tipped and spilled quite a bit of paint on the carpet.  Wouldn’t you know – the can was almost full when it happened!

PANIC ….. now what do I do?  OK ….. first don’t panic!!  I grabbed some old towels and sopped up what paint I could.  Then I got a pitcher and filled it with water and alternately poured some on the paint and then soaked it up with more old towels.  It took some doing, but I finally got almost all of the paint out.  I then put dry towels over the area and “walked” on them to pull as much water out of the carpet as I could.  Much to my surprise, when it dried, I couldn’t even tell where the paint was spilled.

I know what you’re thinking.  Eek, pour water on the carpet.  Won’t that ruin it.  The secret is to pull as much water out of the carpet as possible.  Using the towels as noted above leaves the carpet slightly damp which dries fairly quickly.  Like I said, I definitely don’t recommend spilling paint on carpet, but if you do, you now know how to get it out.

As we recently moved into a new (to us) home, we are going to be doing lots of painting and I’m looking forward to seeing how it changes the look and feel of our home.

How about you?  What are your favorite painting tips?

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