Spring Cleaning Tips for Painting Preparation

Make Sure to Plan Ahead

If your intention is to clean and prep the walls or exterior of your home before painting or having someone paint, it’s important to plan for extra time for things to dry or to accommodate for any unexpected repairs you may have to make. For instance, if you notice parts of a wall have been damaged or dented, but the painters are coming the next day, you won’t have time to fix the damage before it is painted over. Give yourself at least a week in between starting the process of preparations and when the painting will actually take place.

How to Wash and Prep

If the exterior of your home is being painted, be sure to remove loose, peeling, or flaking paint before having the painters come. Scrape it off using a large scraper, or use a disc sander—if you go this route, make sure that the edges between the painted and scraped areas are smoothed out. If there are hard edges between the two surfaces, it will show when the new paint is applied and will not look good.  Pressure washing can also be beneficial, as it cleans off the dirt quickly and effectively. For an optimal clean, use a mixture of water, trisodium phosphate (TSP) and bleach with a brush or sponge, then rinse and wash with a pressure washer. Let everything completely dry before applying new paint.

If you’re painting inside, make sure that there aren’t any scratches in the walls that will be painted, and if there are, spackle and sand them down before cleaning. You can clean interior walls with a similar solution as you used on the exterior of your home—water, TSP and bleach. This mixture thoroughly cleans the surfaces and ensures that paint will look great when applied.

Move Furniture Away from Walls and Dust all Surfaces

Next, make sure to move away any furniture from the walls. Dust all of the furniture as well, as this helps prevent particles of dust getting mixed into the paint and marring the surface of the new coat of paint.  Before painting, cover the furniture with drop cloths or plastic, so that paint doesn’t splash onto the furniture.

If you are prepping the outside of your home, check the weather report so that you don’t schedule the paint job over a time where it is supposed to thunderstorm all day.