It doesn’t take magic spells, secret incantations, and mysterious concoctions to conquer a home painting project, especially when you’re equipped with tips from The Wall Wizard Brian Santos.
Not everyone thinks they’re good at creating decorative effects. But Brian is a fourth-generation decorative artist who learned classical techniques from his father and grandfather and learned his trade over 30 years.
Now he lectures and conducts demonstrations for industry giants like Sherwin-Williams, Imperial Wallcoverings, Home Depot, and Lowe’s at home and garden shows throughout the world.
Brian is presenting 3 workshops to share his simple, quick, low-cost techniques at the St. Charles Home Show. His seminars take a fresh approach, using a fun, entertaining format. You’ll learn tips, tricks and techniques for color selection, best painting tools, proper layout, wall preparation and clean-up that speeds up your painting and wallcovering projects by 400%!
Consider these tips:
- Bag and tag hardware in clear storage bags. As you disassemble the room for painting, drop all the switch plates into one medium plastic bag. Separate hardware for each window, door, and curtain into its own bag and mark its location in the room. Once all the hardware has been bagged, place the bags into one large bag with the room name on it, then stick the bag on the windowpane of the room with blue tape.
- Pull the masking tape while the paint is fresh. Remove the masking materials within 45 to 60 minutes after the paint is applied and set to prevent surface tear up. The idea of masking tape is to protect surfaces from the paint, but when you slop the wet paint over the sealed masking tape, and let the paint cure to hard, the paint film bonds to both the wall and the masking tape. Removing the tape after the paint dries also removes paint from the wall or trim work.
- Use rubber cement to cover hardware. Instead of removing door hinges and handles, clean them with rubbing alcohol, then mask them with two coats of rubber cement. The cement peels right off when finished.
- Clean water-based paint from brushes and paint pads in 10 seconds. Simply remove excess paint from the brush or pad. Mix together ½ cup of fabric softener for each gallon of water, then dip a brush into the mixture, swish briskly through the water, and count to 10. Dry the brush using a paintbrush spinner. Spin the brush in a wet waste bucket. Rub the tool dry with a small towel.
- For quick touch-ups, pour a small amount of paint into a clean shoe polish bottle. The pad is perfect for small jobs. Label the bottle with the room and color, snap on the lid to store.
Brian is brimming with short cuts, cool tools, and practical techniques to help both the first-timer and experienced painter produce a professional looking finish. And his videos make it all look so easy. I especially like his clever idea of the famous “bucket stilts” stocked with a variety of homemade Wizard tools.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Your advice about bagging and tagging hardware is so important we had a nightmare with our kitchen and lost many pieces. We ended up having to buy all new matching hardware!
Good information. I would suggest Tip #6 to be use low or no VOC paints.