How to Choose the Right Paint

Featured Pro: Kelly Edwards
Category: Home Décor
Time: 2:43


KELLY EDWARDS: Hi. I’m Kelly Edwards, and this is your GMC Trade Secret.

Now, painting is something I’ve done a lot of, and over the years I’ve certainly developed my own techniques for getting the job done right. Come with me and I’ll give you some ideas.

When starting any paint project, always remember preparation is key. And preparation means prepping your walls first. Now, when you prep your walls to paint, you certainly want to keep in mind a few things. And one thing is you want to make sure you fill all your nail holes and sand them down flat.

Secondly, you want to make sure that your walls are clean and dry of all dirt and grease, because if they’re not, your paint just won’t stick. And thirdly, in some cases you certainly want to prime your walls.

Now, once you’ve prepped your walls, it’s time to pick out your color samples. So go to your local hardware store and pick up these here. Now, these are just too small to actually put on the wall and see what the color is actually going to look like in your space. So what I say is take this color and have them make you a small sample and then paint it onto a big poster board or foam core and place it up on your wall for several days, because the color is going to change during the day versus at night. So you can really see what that color is going to look like in your space.

Now, when you’re deciding, well, how much paint am I going to actually need for my space, what you want to do is take the height times the width and multiply it, and that gives you the square footage of your walls. And generally a can of paint covers about 400 square feet.

So we’ve prepped our walls and we’ve picked our paint, and now it’s time to grab the tools that we’re going to use. You need to have your spackle and your spackle knife, perfect for filling these nail holes right here. You need your sandpaper so you can sand them down smooth. You need your painter’s tape, and this is great to put around your doors and your windows so that the paint doesn’t seep on through. You need your paint stirrer. And then you also need your brush as well as your roller and your tray.

Now, there is a bunch of different types of paint to choose. So what I say is semi-gloss is perfect for the moldings and trims around your doors and your windows. Egg shell is great for your kitchen, your bathroom, and especially those kids’ rooms, because they can certainly get those walls dirty, and you can just wipe it right off. And flat is perfect for your ceilings as well as for the walls in other parts of your house.

Now, one other thing to consider is never paint water-based paint on top of oil-based paint, and vice versa, without priming first, because your paint can certainly peel right off.

Now, these are just a few of my secrets that will help you paint like a pro.

I’m Kelly Edwards, and that’s my GMC Trade Secret.