How the Pros Paint a Room

I don’t know about you, but Khai and I (Tina Nicole here :)) have needed to paint a room in our home by the ocean for the last two years. The task is so daunting that we keep delaying and delaying. As designers and artists ourselves, we refuse to hire a painter. We have a beautiful soft grey in mind for the walls to offset stunning Czech glass sculptures in sea-inspired colors: moss, peat, azure, natural and white.

As I was browsing online, I came across these handy tips at ArchitecturalDigest.com on how the pros paint a room. I loved it so much, I decided to share the article here! This article lists tips from the stars of the renovation series, Grand Design, seen on Ellen DeGeneres’ Ellen Digital Network. Stars John Colaneri and Anthony  Carrino break the process down step by step…

This article was written by: LINDSEY MATHER at ArchitecturalDigest.com.

You’ve finally landed on the perfect paint color for your new living room (or bedroom or kitchen). Time to call the painter? Maybe not. If you’re in the mood for a weekend project, it’s totally possible to tackle the job yourself. New Jersey–based contractors—and cousins—John Colaneri and Anthony Carrino, the stars of renovation series Grand Design on Ellen DeGeneres’s Ellen Digital Network, could likely paint a room in their sleep at this point. Here, they take us through the process step by step—and it’s surprisingly simple.

1. GET MOVING

You don’t want to damage your favorite sofa or that heirloom your grandmother gave you, so empty the room of all the furniture. If you don’t have enough space, push everything to the center of the room. Cover the pieces with a drop cloth or lightweight plastic sheeting and do the same with the floor. “Don’t skip the drop cloth, paint will splatter, we promise,” say Colaneri and Carrino.

2. TAPE IT UP

Grab a roll of painter’s tape—the cousins recommend FrogTape—and firmly apply it to the edges of the room’s corners, base and crown moldings, and door and window casings. “Getting a good seal so paint doesn’t get under the tape is everything, plus it will pull away clean after everything is dry,” they say. Planning a bold focal wall? Paint the adjoining light-color walls first. “Don’t worry if you get paint on what will be your accent wall—the dark paint will cover up whatever lighter paint found its way there. After the lighter wall dries, tape off that edge so the dark color doesn’t bleed onto your new paint.” If you dare (or have an artist’s steady hand), you can skip taping entirely.

3. CAUSE A STIR

Gather your primer and paint colors along with a high-quality set of brushes and rollers (the cousins like the brand Purdy). Have a brush extension pole and a step ladder handy for hard-to-reach corners. Next, “shake your paint cans vigorously to ensure all of the pigment is mixed throughout, then pour paint into your paint trays.”

4. FIND A BUDDY AND GET STARTED

If you’re covering up dark walls with a brighter hue, plan on three coats: your primer, plus two coats of the new color to ensure nothing shows through. Tackle one wall at a time. Take a brush and “cut in”—paint along the molding and the corners from top to bottom—while your friend uses a roller to cover the main expanse of the wall, staying away from those more precise spots. When applying paint with the roller, use long strokes in a W pattern for ample coverage (and to avoid those pesky roller marks). Once the wall is dry to the touch, it’s ready for a second coat. “Keeping the room warm and a fan blowing definitely helps speed up this process,” say the cousins. “If it’s a damp day, it will take much longer for the paint to dry.”

We hope you enjoyed this article. It gives us an incentive and a road map to tackle our own painting project. I’ll post the photos once we get it done, lol…

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