Interior Home Painting Tips
Rachel asked our message board participants for some help in a big painting job. She asked, "Do I paint the walls or the ceilings first? I've never painted a ceiling, and some ceilings are twenty feet high."
As a former painter in his youth, my husband says it is best to start with the ceiling. -- Michelle T.
Yes, ceiling first, and cover the floors. I hate painting ceilings, personally, but it's one of those necessary evils {grin} A friend of mine, who has very traditional dark wood furniture in her dining room, painted her dining room ceiling a robin's egg blue and the walls a pale eggshell color. It looks really, really good. You could also do a tone-on-tone wallpaper with a painted ceiling.
Personally I'm a traditionalist and like Swiss Coffee ceilings. All the walls in our house are painted with colors and the neutral/white ceilings keep the house from looking like a circus has come to town. Also, since we have standard 8' ceilings, it keeps the rooms from feeling too closed in. If we had the soaring cathedral ceilings I'd probably paint them the same color as the walls (if the walls were a neutral light color). -- SoCalPam
Martha Stewart says to add a cup of your wall color to your light colored ceiling paint. She says it adds a nice glow to the room. I would second the paint the ceiling first idea. It is much easier to paint over splatters you might leave if you do the walls last. Home Depot has bunches of cheap plastic drop clothes. Not expensive. Drap every thing. Tape it down if you must. You might consider renting a paint sprayer from Home Depot if you have lots of walls to paint. - Deb McTexas
My husband paints our ceilings, and he rarely puts drop cloths down. I think a lot of the mess depends on your style of painting!! There's the load-that-roller-up-and-git-r-done method (me!) and then there's the be-precise-take-it-slow-do-it-well method (husband!). You can figure out which one is less messy. I will say I have learned to edge without having to tape off, which saves a lot of time and looks better (you use a slanty brush and just.go.slow.). You know what would make your day is if you just go ahead and replace all the flooring, too. Then you could paint and not worry about drips! -- Darla
Ceilings first. If you think you will be changing the color of your room, such as a bedroom that might change as the child grows... go a neutral color. I personally would not paint the ceiling of any room that has a chance of changing color a shade of that color because I hate painting ceilings and a neutral color will go with color changes. But in rooms that you plan on keeping the same you could do a shade or complimentary color on the ceiling. Be aware that dark colors lower ceilings (at least I think they do). We have grey walls, grey ceiling and white crown molding that accents it really nicely. In one room that has a coffered ceiling the high part is a darker color, but then it's one of those fifteen foot ceilings (pretty high for a one story house) that can be lowered visually. -- Marcelyn
