Now that spring is only a few days away, many people start thinking about interior decorating to help wash away the winter blues. Decorating with paint is one of the easiest ways to brighten any room and to give your home a whole new look. Paint is truly the most economical way of giving your home a facelift.

Good quality paint goes on much easier, covers the old paint better and lasts longer. The best paints are those that are water-based and acrylic paints. That is because they dry faster and a re safer for the indoor environment. Choosing a high gloss or sheen paint makes cleaning easier because of the smooth surface. This is generally the paint to choose for trims and baseboards, while satin paints are best for walls. If you have any imperfections in the wall, choosing a paint with a low sheen will really make those imperfect spots loom much larger.

You can paint over laminate and shiny surfaces, but you do have to prepare them first. Paneling, too, can be painted. This is good news for those with dark paneling in the rooms of the basement. First you have to sand the surface to roughen it up a bit and then apply an adhesive to cover the slippery surfaces. Once the primer has dried, then you can apply a latex or acrylic paint. You don't have to fill in the grooves between the panels, as painted paneling looks quite nice.

Instead of painting over old wallpaper, remove it first. If you do paint over it and then decide to remove it later, you will find that it is really difficult to get it off the wall. When you do remove the paper, sand the wall gently to remove any small bits that haven't come off. Prime the wall and apply one or two coats of latex paint. It is possible that you may still see the lines on the wall where the paper meets if you don't spend time preparing the wall beforehand.

If you have a dark color on the wall now and want to change to a lighter color paint. You need to use a good primer that has some of the top color mixed in with it. Allow the tinted primer to dry and then survey the wall to see if you can still see some of the base color showing through. You may need to apply several coats of primer before you do apply the coat of paint in the color you want.

Learn more about this author, Frances Stanford.
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