Tips for Masking a Room before Painting

Before giving any tips on masking a room, first you need to know what masking means. It means to tape off the edges of the room to keep them from getting paint where you don’t want it. Masking a room before painting is relatively easy, but time consuming. It is still essential to do it, because it will end up saving you time in the end.

The first step to masking a room is to clear the room out as much as possible. If you don’t have room or any place to put the items in the room then you can move them to the center of the room and cover them with a tarp or blankets.

Then you need to remove the items from the walls, i.e. pictures, shelves, stickers (children), and posters and then repair any holes you have in the walls. A good product to use is wood putty, but if you don’t have any or can’t afford to buy any plain toothpaste will work. If you are going to use toothpaste then make sure it is the paste kind not the one with gel in it.

After you have filled all the holes, your next step is to wash the walls with a simple solution of soap and water. It doesn’t have to be an in depth cleaning, but enough to remove any grease from the walls. The walls may not look greasy but the oils from your hands can get on the walls and it could hinder how your paint adheres to the walls.

The final step to masking the room is to actually tape it. You will need to make sure you take around the windows, door frames, base boards and remove the light and plug plates and tape round them also. If you are painting the ceiling a different color you will also need to tape the ceiling off so you don’t get any of the wall paint on the ceiling. You will want to use a colored masking tape to mask off the room to help you find it after you paint the wall, to make sure you remove all of it. There are also special taping sets to help you roll the tape on the edge, but I have found these are just messy and are more difficult to use then plain masking tape. A good idea when you are taping off baseboards and frames is to extend the tape over the edge because inevitably you will paint over top of the tape and if you have extended the tape you are less likely to make a mess.

The most important tip of masking a room is to not think of it as the worst part of painting, but something you will do to keep the room from becoming a headache. If you put the work into the front end, the back end will be much easier. The job will actually be quicker than if you don’t mask the room, because you won’t have as much of a cleanup. Enjoy painting, it can be fun.