Essential DIY Tools for a Successful Painting Project

Paintbrushes
It is a must to have more than one paintbrush. Separate paintbrushes must be used for primers, water based paints and oil based paints. A 3 inch or 4 inch brush is ideal for wall painting. In narrow or tight spaces, a brush with 1 inch width works better and gives a tidier finish than a wider brush. A brush with a width of 2 inches is good if the project includes trim painting, alternatively a pointed paintbrush can be used.

Ladder
Painting a room generally includes higher areas unreachable by bare hands. This makes a ladder essential in any DIY painting job. This tool can be expensive, but its use does not end with the project. It can be used for other purposes or it can be kept aside for the next painting job.

Paint Rollers
Paintbrushes are normally used in small scale DIY jobs. If the area to be covered is a lot bigger, the use of rollers is advisable. Rollers with short handles are best to use in low areas. Rollers with long handles on the other hand are handier to use to reach higher areas such as ceilings instead of using a ladder. With paint rollers, the need to awkwardly bring up and down your ladder, a bucket of paint or other painting tools is avoided.

Edge Painters
Paintbrushes and rollers are important tools in DIY painting. Experts may use them with ease when painting corners, but for beginners, using these tools can make the job easier and faster. They work like a syringe attached to a paint pad. The handle has to be pulled back, just like a syringe, to suck up paint. Then the trigger button has to be pressed to release paint and allow it to flow freely to the paint pad. These painting tools also help in achieving high quality finish due to even paint distribution.

Roller Grids
A Roller grid is vital if paint rollers are used. A roller tray can also be used, but this tool offers more benefits. After dipping the roller into the bucket of paint, the roller then slides along the grid to remove excess paints and to distribute the paint evenly. Failure to squeeze out excess paints may not only result to paint wastage but a messy job as well as an uneven and unprofessional finish.

Coverings or Masks
Ignoring important aspects of a painting project like covering non target areas can result in a higher workload overall. Thus, it is important to cover and protect floors, furniture, decors, door jams, hinges or glass windows before the DIY project starts. Masking tapes are ideal for door hinges, door jams and windows. Cloth, newspapers or other forms of materials that can cover a wide area can be used to cover floors or carpets and can be purchased from DIY stores. Special types of glass and door hinges masks are also available. These types of coverings are easy and quick to remove after the job is done.

Extension Poles
Ladders and paint rollers with long handles are there to reach ceilings and high walls. But some areas are just too high for those tools to reach. This makes an extension pole essential. Some poles are designed so that they can hold different painting tools such as paintbrush, edge painter or a normal paint roller as attachment.

Paint Scrapers
These DIY tools are used to scrape old paints to make way for an even, clean and smooth newly painted wall. They can be purchased in different shapes and sizes. Flat and wide head scrapers are used in wide areas while scrapers with narrower heads are obviously ideal for small areas. Angled head types are also available which are good to scrape paints in tight corners.

Paint Buckets
There is nothing wrong in using Dulux paints cans or a Hammerite metal paint can as paint container. However, paint cans sometimes are too small for paint rollers. In this case, a bigger paint bucket is more ideal to use. There are paint buckets that are equipped with a roller grid, thus purchasing one is not necessary. Some brands are even designed with built in compartments to accommodate other tools needed for the job such as paintbrushes and scrapers.