How to prep a house for painting the interior involves removing obstacles, protecting areas from paint, cleaning walls, drywall repair, fixing baseboards, fixing trim, sanding, and one final cleaning. To begin the prep work for painting the interior of a house, you need to first remove everything you can:
- remove decorations
- remove furniture
- remove outlet and light switch covers
- and anything else you can think of
After the obstacles are out of your way, protect the areas you don’t want to get paint on. Then you can
give the walls a good cleaning. When your walls are nice and clean, you can repair damage and
imperfections:
- Fix holes
- Fix raised areas
Furthermore, you want to also repair trim and baseboards along with repairing the walls. When all of
this is done, you can give the walls a finial sanding. With the walls sanded, give them a good final
cleaning. The last step will be to tape off the repaired baseboards and trim. Now your home’s interior is
properly prepared in order to get an expert paint job.
Interior Paint Prep Summary
- Remove obstacles
- Protect areas from paint
- Clean the walls
- Repair the walls
- Fix trim and baseboards
- Sand
- Clean
- Protect the baseboards and trim
Prep the Interior by Removing Items and Taping Off Areas
Removing obstacles out of your way will be a good first easy step for how to prep a house for painting the interior. This starts with furniture and
decorations along with similar items. Before removing electrical coverings such as covers for light
switches and outlets, disconnect the home’s electrical system. Now that the electrical areas are safe,
you can cover them with tape.
Speaking of tape, you want to use a good quality roll or rolls:
- Quality painter’s tape will stick well and not leave residue.
To protect the floors, tape their edges down along the walls/ baseboards. Then you can cover the entire floor with a protective material. Along with taping the edge of the floor, you can put tape on the celling on the edge of the wall.
How to Prep a House For Painting Interior: Cleaning Walls
With everything well protected, you can begin cleaning the walls. First, vacuum edges and corners.
Drywall is delicate, so using a vacuum is a great way to avoid damaging the walls when cleaning them.
After the edges are cleaned, you can use a good quality dry dusting cloth to wipe down all the walls and trim.
Prepping the Interior: Repairing Wall Damage
The next step after cleaning will be repairing damage. You can get a repair kit to fix small holes. The kit
should include the tools you need with a patching material. For larger damage, you will use drywall mud. For fixing raised areas, use a specific scraping tool to start. After you scrape it down, use a coarse piece of sandpaper to smooth it as much as possible. Get the raised areas as flush as possible.
Repair Room Trim
You need to repair the walls before painting an interior; however, you should also repair trim and
baseboards. The most common repair you will probably need to do is fill gaps between the trim and
walls. You can use caulking for doing this repair. Caulk the gaps and then use a soft 90-degree object to scrap off the excess caulking.
Sanding the Room
Now that your interior is repaired, give the walls a finishing sanding job. A very fine grit sandpaper works well for this. Sanding creates particles, so be sure to use proper protections:
- Use safety goggles
- Use an n95 mask
To get a nice even sanding, use the wax on wax off method.
Clean the Room’s Walls
After the finishing sanding is complete, use a very damp cloth to clean the debris off the walls. Water and drywall don’t mix well, so the less damp your cloth is the better. When you are done with the damp cloth, finish the job with a new completely dry cloth. Now your walls are fully prepared for paining, after they are dried off of course.
Tape off Trim
But before you paint, you will need to tape off the baseboards and trim. This needs to happen after the repairs you did are dried and set. You’ll be painting the trim after you complete painting the walls, this is way they need to be taped off.
Painting the Room
With all this in place, you’ll now know how to prep a house for painting the interior. You will have prepared an interior for painting by removing obstacles, protecting areas from paint, cleaning walls, drywall repair, fixing baseboards, fixing trim, sanding, and the one final cleaning. A great interior paint job can only occur if the prep work is done flawlessly and there is a lot of prep work that needs to be done. If the amount of work overwhelms you or you really want an amazing paint job you should consult a painting professional.