You've got to prepare before you paint. Every professional painter knows just how important preparatory work is, but that does not mean that it is a fun part of the job. Once you've broken open the painter's tape and covered your floor with drop cloths, there's still a lot of little things that need to be done to make the area ready for painting. Fortunately, tools are available to make certain activities a little easier.
Whether you're working on a new project or wish to modernize a dull interior, having the right tools for a job will make prep work faster and more efficient. Although the specific tools you need will depend on the jobs you do, there are a few prep items that you should never be without.
Scoring Tool
It is difficult to remove an age-old wallpaper. This is where a good quality scoring tool is worth its weight in gold. Instead of simply buying a cheap scoring tool and thinking it's going to get the job done, choose one made from quality materials that won't bend or get dull quickly. You want to get scoring tools that can punch through the wallpaper well enough to remove the glue from your follow-up treatments, and the wrong tool will only have you working even harder to get the paper off than you need.
Sheetrock Tool
Sometimes you forget about the tools to repair and fill the sheetrock until you need them. However, if you are painting an interior that has damaged sheetrock, you'll want to have those tools handy. Make sure you have at least a mud pan, some sheetrock knives, and everything else you need for some quick patchwork. Getting the right tools on hand will save you a lot of time and frustration when you find dents or holes in the walls before you start painting.
Heat Gun
A heat gun removes paint cost-effectively, quickly and with significantly less mess than a chemical remover. This gun can be used with interior or exterior paints and will work on either latex or oil-based finishes. These heat guns emit a significant amount of heat, enough to soften even thick paint coatings and cause it to bubble up. When that happens, you can do a short paint job with a scraper. Just be careful when using the heat gun, because going too slowly with it or concentrating it for too long on one area can actually scorch the materials under the paint.
Oscillating Scrapers
Scrapers are an important tool to remove the wallpaper or other materials before you begin working. Scraping is often a fairly monotonous task. Enter the oscillating scraper, a tool that will add a small engine to your scraper to significantly speed up the process. Just don't use it on a finished surface, as if you're not careful you might end up with scratches deep on the surface.
Sanders
For DIY painters sanding is a fact of life, and there are a number of sanders to make your work easier. Palm sanders and orbital sanders automate much of the work while block sanders give you the control you need to get the job done.
Instead of buying all these tools for prep work and doing by yourself. It is always advisable to hire a Professional Painter in Connecticut to do this job.
