Maybe you just bought your new house and want the paint color changed. Or maybe your old paint is starting to peel off. Whatever the reason, you're going to need fresh paint and some painters to paint your house. But how should you prepare your home for the painters? In this article, I will discuss five ways to prepare your home for painting.
Take Down Anything Hanging on The Walls
This can range from curtains, mirrors, paintings; etc. Basically, remove everything. While the painters may remove the items that are in their way, they might not as well(the also might drop something). Painters are notorious for painting over items that don't need to be painted. Not all of them mind you, just some of them.
Remove Door Handles
This can be a taxing process, but if you're really obsessed with keeping paint off of your door handles then you may want to remove them entirely. Painters will try to go around your door handles, but many times will get paint on them. This can be accidental in nature or just plain laziness.
Protect Valuables
You never know who the painters really are, so protecting your valuables is something that needs to be done. You don't need to remove your flat screen television(probably too heavy), but you may want to hide your checkbook, jewelry; etc. Basically, anything that is not heavy and easy to steal.
And if you have any items that are extremely important to you then you may wish to move them elsewhere. You don't want your antique vase to be broken accidentally, do you? Just play it safe.
Shield Your Hinges
This is much easier than removing your hinges from the doors. Just find some packaging tape, and cover your hinges up as best you can. This may not always be effective, but it's better than nothing.
If paint does get on the hinges then you can use some paint thinner to remove it. Or in a worse case scenario, you can purchase new hinges; they only cost around a dollar or two. It just depends on the type of hinge that you're replacing.
Leave Notes
If you want to take an extra precautionary step against possible mistakes that the painters could make then you can just leave a hand written note for them. Just specify what you want them to do and that's that.
As you can see, preparing your home for painters does not have to be a difficult process. Simply take some extra steps to protect your valuables, and make sure that the painters understand what to do. And then everyone will be happy.
And don't use packing tape for the hinges, instead buy painters tape. You don't want tape residue on anything, and the low stickiness of the painters tape is perfect. Plus its cheap. Money well spent.