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Hey guys, Jeff from Home RenoVision here. Today we're working on our basement project, and I'm in the theater room right now. Today's video is all about painting: how to go from bare drywall that's primed to finishing off the project in new construction. What's the right order, what are all the tips, what are the pitfalls, how do you solve your problems as you go, and what little tricks can you use to make yourself efficient and productive and avoid costly mistakes? This one's for you. I'm going to save your bacon and show you my secret to success, my top 10 tips, so that you can have a perfect basement renovation paint job every time.
Tip number one is of course to do a prime check after you've done your drywall. Get your beige mud out, or add some chalk, red or blue chalk line dust, into your mud so that you can make a colorant mix, mix it in, and then go look for imperfections. Use different kinds of lighting: use direct light, use offset light. Do a prime check in the morning and then do another one in the afternoon. This is not a process that you want to rush. New construction always has little problems; it's just the nature of the game. Even the drywall will come with dents that are predetermined just from the handling and shipping process.
Once you've got all your prime check done, tip number two is you've got to sand your prime check. You've got to sand your walls. In this room we did spray ceilings, and we sanded in between two coats of spray, and we sanded before we sprayed. The rule of paint in general is this: once it's dry, you sand it. The only time we don't sand is after the last coat is done. Every other time, before you touch a wall, you sand. There's always dust, there's always imperfections, there's always a rough surface, and so the best paint jobs are finished by having a smooth surface before you start. Sanding is simple: use an orbital sander, just like in our painting videos, right on the drywall, right on the primer. It's just a quick pass. Because this is new drywall, you also want to check it with your hand. Make sure, well, right there, that corner is just the drywall paper, and it had the paint sprayed on it. It's still a little rough, there's no mud there; it's just the nature of using a sprayer. There we go, now it's smooth like a baby's bottom. Be picky. You're only going to do this once, so be picky. You'd be the biggest critic in the room, and you'll be happy with the job when you're done.
Tip number three is all about your trim. When you're doing a project like this, you want to put your flooring in first so that when you install your trim, you can install it right onto the floor, and you don't have to add another piece of trim afterwards. Extra trim costs extra money, extra time, extra caulking, extra paint work, and you're always faced with the same dilemma, which is that you have to paint right up against the floor. In our system, what you do is paint all of your baseboard first, in another room, and then install it. Your nails should always go in the middle of the board. That way, when you're all finished and you have to do the touch-ups, you only have to bring your brush and roller halfway down the board, because from here to here is already completely finished. That will help you avoid the costly mistake of getting paint on your flooring and then having to scrape it up or clean it up. Remember, a lot of surfaces today, engineered hardwood even, come with water-based finishes, so you can't use acetone to take paint off of wood and be guaranteed you're not going to have a problem. That's money in the bank. And for your baseboards and your casings, you don't ever want to have a brush go near your flooring ever again.
Tip number four is this: when you're trimming out your windows, use half-inch finished plywood. Use a top-grade, super-smooth plywood. It's easy to paint, easy to fill, and before you put the top piece of casing on, paint above it on the wall and cut your line. This enables you to add this trim, and you'll guarantee you're going to have room to get your brush in there without getting paint on the ceiling. This is easy to paint, the surface only, and because you don't have to caulk in around the top or paint the top of that trim either. When you're meeting up with an old window, use a piece of trim, and if it's flush, use a square piece of trim that covers the gap. Over time, if you rely on caulking only on that joint, it's going to crack, it's going to gap, because especially in a four-season climate, expansion and contraction win that battle every time. So always add a piece of trim to guarantee good results long term.
Tip number five: I've seen so many videos on the internet of people using tape to cut tape off the lines before they cut in, and to cover their baseboards. Take this: it's of no use to you on new construction. If you want to avoid destroying your work, don't bring tape to it. Remember, paint takes 30 days to cure. If you put tape on your baseboard to protect it from getting a little paint on it from the roller, you're going to peel off the paint. If you put tape around your ceiling to protect it from the roller when you're doing your walls, when you take that tape off you're going to rip the paint right off the ceiling. That's important: tape is not your friend in new construction, it's your enemy. Now, if it's an older house and the paint's been there for years, sure, you can use tape, but why not just learn how to paint like a pro? It saves you a lot of time and energy.
Tip number six: when dealing with ceilings, if you use a sprayer you're way ahead. You get a much nicer finish, there are never any lines on it, and I've got a video to show you how to do that. They rent those machines at Home Depot. It's easy to use, and you don't have to be overwhelmed with the concept. I know it's scary and new to a lot of people to use a sprayer, but if you watch that video, which we'll put in the video description, it'll make it a lot easier for you. There are really only three or four tricks you need to know to use a sprayer. But remember this: if you use a sprayer, you get a different texture on the finish. So when you go to cut and roll your walls, unless you've got a steady hand and you've mastered the art, I'm going to suggest you don't use the sprayer. Although it looks better, if you use a sprayer and then make a mistake and need to do a touch-up, that touch-up brush or roller mark is going to scream. It's going to say, "I just got patched." So consider this: if you're not comfortable with your brush work, cut and roll your ceilings, or at least use a brush around the edges and spray the rest. Know that it's going to look funny, but I'd recommend brush and roller on a ceiling if you're not comfortable painting without tape. If you are comfortable with it, then get the machine and spray your ceiling every single time. You've got a decision to make: two choices when it comes to painting your ceiling. Brush and roll, or use the sprayer. If you brush and roll, it's a little bit safer if you make a mistake. If you use a sprayer, you've got to be perfect with your brush.
Tip number seven: I know you're only painting the walls, but cover all of the surfaces in the whole room, and if you've got furniture, cover that too. There's nothing worse than going to sit down on a piece of furniture two or three weeks after a paint job, once the paint has cured, and finding a great big pink spot on your blue sofa. Buy tarps that are four feet by 15 feet long, line the whole perimeter, take a great big 12 by 15 and open it up in the room. I know, I know, I know: if you use good paint and you take your time when you're painting, you generally don't have a mistake. But that's why they call them mistakes, because they happen when you don't expect them. So make sure you cover everything up, protect your floors, and avoid the need to go around after you've done your job with a little piece of wet sandpaper trying to take the paint off the floor.
Tip number eight is all about how to solve your problems once you've got your first coat of paint on. Obviously, we've got to do the first coat. While your patching is setting up and drying, it's a great time to hit your trim. In this particular case, the window was framed with unprimed wood, so I had to prime it. There's one coat of semi-gloss on the rest of this. Make sure every single joint, especially around windows, is caulked. Caulking everywhere. Then take your brush and cut all the joints, because the mini roller isn't going to get in those joints. We're going to really get that all filled up nicely. Then take our mini roller and apply all our flat surfaces. If you do the brush work afterwards, after the mini roller, you're not going to have the same texture. So brush first, and you can roll into the corners, and that will change almost all the texture on that surface, and that is the best way to get that done. Same for up here. Let's finish this all the way to the other end, then cut that gap there. You're going to find that if you're using plywood like I did, you're going to need a primer, two coats of your semi, possibly even two coats of primer depending on what primer you put on here. You really want to make sure, and when all is said and done, it's perfect every time. Now, here's a word of warning: when you're doing this, you can't put a coat on, wait an hour until it feels dry, and then put another coat on. Nothing is sealing real wood, and it will just keep soaking up the moisture, and you're going to be left with a product that doesn't look like it got painted. Here's a trick for you: if you do a primer and then a finish coat, let it sit 24 hours, then come back, wait until it's actually set up and really dry, and then put the next coat on. It will sit on the surface without penetrating into the wood again. That's the secret to getting this done with one primer and two coats of finish. If you try to hurry and move along too fast, trying to do all the coats in one day, you'll come back the next day disappointed and have to do another coat. The process is simple, guys. Dust it. If you don't have a duster, grab an old brush that's getting clogged up with some acrylic. I like to just buy a cheap square brush. Then hit our drywall primer and cut it right down on the baseboard.
The process here is simple. I paint the baseboard one coat, I use a caulking bead, we do a coat on the wall, we find our mistakes, we fix them, we prime them, and then we paint them. When it's all said and done, the process works like this: you paint all your door casing and window casing, then you do your second coat on your wall, and then you come back and do the last coat on your baseboard. I'm going to show you how easy this is, and I know everybody has this issue. Some people comment on channels in the past and say they don't believe in that, they like to put green tape here. I like to paint my baseboards first and then protect them with tape. Listen, when you're cutting and you've got a wall surface to cut, I've got four inches I can work with here to get a perfect line. When I'm working with just a baseboard that's half an inch thick, one little mistake is all up the wall. Do things in order that give you the most mercy: do all your casings first, then use your wall to push your brush and draw your line around your casing. Dry all your wall, and do all your wall up against your baseboard, and at the very end, you come back and use the baseboard. You can set your brush and use just a little bit of it to make the cut line. I'll show you that in just a second.
Once all your patches are dry, give them a quick sand, and then prime them. We're going right back to when we finish our first coat. I have never been on a job where we sanded, primed, prime-checked, did a first coat, and were happy with the first coat. Never been on one. You might think, oh, that's because you're a lousy drywall taper, Jeff. I'm like, no, it's just because once you add the paint, you change the way the light bounces around the room, and you're going to see things you didn't see before. If you don't believe me, that's just the way it is. That's just a lot of painting. You're just not going to get a perfect job unless you put the time and energy in to be critical about your work. After you get your first coat on, if you're not critical, yeah, it'll look great. Most homeowners I know are trying to do the best job possible, so that requires being critical.
The reason we're using the primer is because we don't want to waste our money. If I prime just the spot I did this with, then come back with a mini roller and the wall paint, I'm only using an ounce or so of paint. But if I don't prime and I just use the wall paint to cover it up and go, oh, that's good enough, what's going to happen is you're going to finish your second coat and then see all those patches on the wall, and then you're going to have to do a whole third coat, which will cost you another gallon. In today's market, a good gallon of paint runs you almost 100 bucks. Do the couple ounces, prime it, let it dry. I know it's an extra step, but it works and it will save you money in the long run.
Here's the process. Last day of new construction: we're going to be sanding these walls. Before we sand the walls, we want to get our primed patch wall color back to first coat. Now I don't have to worry about little wispy tails and stuff like that. I don't even have to worry about great coverage. When you have a good quality paint, you're going to be just fine with the mini roller. The secret here is just get all this done, give this about an hour to set up before you paint the walls, and if you get lint on the wall, get rid of it. Don't leave lint on the wall when you're finishing off the primer like this, because when you sand that back, it'll leave another white spot. When I go to paint this wall now, I'll start with the cut line down there at the bottom, then start on that wall and come around the room. By the time I get back to here, this wall will be nice and dry. Piece of cake.
Last step, of course, is your sanding. People ask me all the time what grit I use on the paper. The coarsest you want to use is 220; go up to 400. Again, you can feel the roughness after the first coat, and if you get really close, you'll see a bunch of little white dots appearing in the paint. That's the rough that smooths off. That's what you're going to have, and that's okay, because the second coat is going to cover all of that. So all you need to know now, guys: if you've got two coats and you sand in between coats, you're going to need a duster, which is an older brush. Clean any dust off the baseboards from that sanding, and the last thing you need to do is cut a line on your trim with the brush. You can see the edge, set the brush up against the right in that gap of the wall, and there we go. That's it. Cheers, and see you next time.