Often as children get older, or you get new furniture, or you’ve been looking at the same wall color for years, you get the urge to paint a room.  You can always hire a professional, and if you do be sure to get a referral.  However, this is the type of project that can be fun to tackle yourself.  The personal feeling of accomplishment when you improve a space in your own home can be immeasurable.

To begin, you will need to prepare the walls and ceiling, which may or may not entail the following (you decide what makes sense for your room):

1. Remove as much furniture as you can.  Move whatever you are unable to remove to the center of the room and cover with old sheets or drop cloths.  Protect any exposed floor in the same manner and use removable masking tape (3M Blue) around moldings, doors and windows.
2. Cover the smoke detector with a plastic bag and turn off air conditioning or heating while doing any sanding or painting.
3. Sand or scrape loose and flaking paint with sandpaper and paint scrapers.
4. Fill all nail and screw holes with spackling compound and a putty knife; fill cracks with caulk.
5. If you have more serious damage to walls, use drywall tape and mud.  On woodwork, use epoxy filler.  Regardless of what you use, you will need to sand it down until it matches the area around the repaired area.
6. Wash all surfaces with TSP (trisodium phosphate).  This will remove grease and dirt allowing paint to adhere to the wall surface.  Also use a deglossser on any glossy surfaces such as trim.
7. Rinse walls and ceiling well with water to remove the TSP. Allow surfaces to dry thoroughly, and then dust and vacuum as needed. You don’t want sanding dust to get on freshly cleaned or painted walls.
8. Before removing cover plates from all electrical fixtures, outlets and switches, TURN THE POWER OFF.  Use small pieces of masking tape to cover switch handles and outlets, so that you don’t accidentally brush them with paint.  Remove heating and air-conditioning vent covers.
9. If you don’t need to turn the power back on to paint, leave it off, it is safer.  If you do turn the power back on, be very careful when painting around electrical areas.

Once the room is prepared to paint, it is time to begin the preliminary painting.

1. Use a stain-blocking primer to cover any dark mark you can’t remove (stains, knots, ink, dark paint); otherwise, that area will bleed through. Never paint over wallpaper.
2. Make sure there is adequate ventilation in the room.
3. Plan on three coats: one coat of primer and two coats of finish. Always use primer on patched and unpainted surfaces; raw surfaces will suck up paint like a sponge – or reject it.  If your primer is being rejected, you may need to better prepare the surface by sanding, rinsing better, or reapplying and rinsing TSP.
4. Using a 2-inch or 3-inch paintbrush outline the room (i.e. where the ceiling meets the walls (and where the walls meet the ceiling), around doors and windows and above the baseboard and any other trim in the room.  Also paint corners.  What you are trying to do is paint everywhere that you will not be able to paint with a paint roller or where you need more control than a paint roller allows.

When the room has been outlined with paint, then it is time to use the paint roller.  This is when you really start to see your room transform.

1. Pour some paint into the roller pan and roll the ceiling and then the walls with your prime paint.  Pour only a small amount of paint in your roller pan.  Doing this will keep the paint from drying out before you can use it.
2. It is best to start rolling before the brushed-on paint has had time to dry, so that the rolled-on paint will blend in rather than become a second coat. Roll the letter “W” about 3 feet wide and then fill-in until you have a 3’ x 3’ area fully covered.  Then move on to the next area, repeating the process as many times as is required to cover all the walls floor to ceiling.  This will assure an even application of paint.
3. Rolling out a W, about 3 feet wide, and then filling it in, assures an even application of paint. Get as close into the corners as you can without making a messy paint line.  Painting from dry areas into wet areas will reduce paint ridges, and you can feather (thin out) all edges as you go with a brush or a roller.

Be sure to cover paint cans when you are not using them.  Keep a rag and brush available to deal with drips and spills.

Repeat the outline and painting process for each coat.

If you do have a drip that is too dry to feather, let it dry.  You can come back later and sand it down, then touch-up.

Finally when paint has dried, remove tape and drop clothes, replace furniture and enjoy your fresh newly painted room.

I don’t think that Martha Stewart is the end all to gardening or signage for that matter. Every year I plant bulbs and perenials in my garden. In the spring I go to weed my gardens and I am never sure what is a weed and what is a plant just breaking ground. The bulbs aren’t so hard to identify, but I often forget which bulbs I put where. Martha’s idea is not original, in fact people have been painting on stones since the dawn of time all around the world (cave paintings, fun images, and park signs). 

Martha just told me what I’d need in case I didn’t want to think too hard.  It is easy and super inexpensive.  All you need are some smooth stones (the north shore has some great stones if you happen to be in the area).  They can be large or small, and you can choose how you want the finished product to look.

Use a permanent dye-based ink and a set of alphabet stamps (or freehand if you are that good), stamp or paint the names of your plants on cleaned stones and then put them in your garden next to the corresponding plants.

If you want to get your kids involved, you could also use a paint brush and an exterior paint. Let the kids paint the words on the stones (you may need to spell the words out for them).  It’s a fun weekend project for the whole family.

Just leave those stones in your garden when winter comes and next year you’ll know exactly where all your perenial herbs, plants and bulbs are. PLUS every surface the stone covers is that much less area to weed!!!