When you are prepping your house for sale, there’s always several big debates for chronic DIYers like us: how much to paint, how much to do oneself, how much to hire out, and who to hire. For a recent project, hiring college kids on Spring Break worked well and gave them some needed spending money but we did have to do some finishing details afterward, like going over the quarter inch of bright green paint that showed above the realtor’s favorite “Amazing Gray” when our good-hearted amateurs taped just shy of the ceiling.
Once you have decided to do what you can yourself (because paint is cheap and labor is not), there are decisions like whether or not to use painter’s tape, what nap of roll to pick, which drop cloth to use (versus an old sheet which either leaks through to the floor or an outdoor tarp which can be slippery) and of course, which length and brand of paintbrush. We are a bit of brush snobs because a little extra money on brushes goes a long way in keeping bristles from being painted into your walls. Soooo many choices, so little time. Oh, and let’s not even begin to mention the paint itself.
Fortunately for you, we did mention paint and painting tools in our podcast on How to Paint Like a Pro. You can also read about picking paint colors in Picking Paint Colors with a professional.
As all good product manufacturers, we found a few new items on the shelves when prepping our house for sale this year. FrogTape now has a yellow Delicate Surface Painter’s Tape with PaintBlock, 1.88″ wide. This is especially helpful when you are trying to get your painting done in a tight time frame and you are painting the wall soon after the trim is dry. You heard me right. Pros told us to paint the trim, especially complicated trim, first. We’ve done it both ways – wall, then trim, but it worked out surprisingly well to do the baseboard first this last go around.
Leave us comments about your favorite story of painting “challenges”. What worked? What didn’t?
Click on the image below to buy your own yellow painter’s tape and any other painting supplies you need!