Are you nervous to paint your ceilings in Surrey, BC? It doesn’t have to be back braking if you have a good procedure and the right tools. We are going to talk about the right way to go about painting your ceilings. This is a continuation of our interior painters in Surrey How To guide. In this article, we are going to cover how to paint your ceilings, and not have to go to the chiropractor afterwards.
If you are painting a room and want to know when to paint the ceilings, How To Paint A Room – Interior Painters In Surrey – Guide will help you with the proper series of steps. Painting ceilings is the first step.
Ceilings are probably the least common surface that get painted in a house. Unless you are 6’5”, your hands are probably not leaving fingerprints on them, so they tend to remain in good shape unless something damages them. But, if they’re looking tired, or you want to change the colour, then this is the guide for you.
Because ceilings also come in a variety of textures, there are a few ways to tackle painting them, so it’s good to know what kind you have which will help you to choose the right strategy.
Interior painters in Surrey brake ceiling textures down into two broad categories. The first is flat and light textures, the second is popcorn or heavy textures.
The reason that we do this is because, when you are deciphering how to paint your ceilings, you want to know if you can tackle it with a brush and roller using waterborne, latex paint, or if you are going to have to spray the paint on or maybe even apply an oil-based primer first.
Most of the textures that get applied to ceilings are soluble in water. So, if you have a popcorn or heavy textured ceiling and you try to apply the paint with a brush and roller using waterborne latex paint, you run the risk or ruining the texture, or worse, having it fall off the ceiling. We will cover how to paint these kinds of surfaces in another article.
Here, let’s focus on how to paint your ceilings which are flat or have a light texture. Interior painters in Surrey, BC define “light texture” as anything less than popcorn. If you’re not sure if you have a popcorn ceiling, a quick google image search will give you hundreds of pictures.
Tools and Paint Needed To Complete Your Project
Tools: 1 paint brush, 1-2 paint trays, 1 roller cage/handle, 1-2 mini roller handle, 1 roller sleeve (13-15 mil), 1-2 4” roller sleeves that have material on the outside edge and will fit on the mini roller handle, 1 roll of frog tape, 1 roll of masking paper or some newspaper, clean plastic, drop sheets, 1 extension pole or a broom handle, 1 empty clean and dry paint can, 1 small tub of spackle, 1 3” putty knife.
A good extension pole or sturdy broom handle is going to be your best friend here. This one item will make the biggest difference as to how your back and your neck feel at the end of this project. With a good pole, you can do much of the work from the ground, and cover much more surface area with each dip in the paint tray.
Paint: 1-2 gallons of ceiling paint. We recommend a flat finish for the ceilings. 1 gallon of drywall primer if the ceilings have not been previously painted. One gallon will cover approximately 400 square feet, 1 quart of stain blocking primer if there are water stains on the ceiling.
Look to buy your paint from one of suppliers listed below. All will have a range of qualities of ceiling paint. If you’re on a tight budget, ceilings are the one surface that I would say that you can use a lower end paint. The reason for this is that no one is going to touch them. So they don’t need to be as durable as the walls or trim.
Sherwin-Williams
Benjamin Moore
Cloverdale Paints
Dulux Paint
How To Paint Your Ceilings Like the Professional Interior Painters In Surrey.
Prepare The Room
- Move as many things out of the room as possible. Whatever can’t be removed, push to the center of the room and cover it with clean plastic, old bedsheets, or whatever you have that you can get paint on.
- Put down drop sheets to cover the floor.
- Items that can’t be removed from the walls, cover with masking paper, or newspaper and tape.
- Pull down and pot lights so that they hang from the wire. This won’t break the light; they are designed to hang down.
- Any other light fixtures, tape them off with your frog tape and masking paper or plastic.
Paint Your Ceilings
If your ceilings are previously painted, then plan on applying two coats of paint. If not, then plan on applying 1 coat of primer and 2 coats of paint. Whether you are applying primer or paint, the steps will be the same. Repeat the following steps for each coat.
How to paint your ceilings that are raw is the same as painting your ceilings that have been previously painted, only is it advisable to apply a coat of primer. You will get the best results if you do. You can skip this step, the paint will still adhere, but for a more even finish, a coat of primer will help with this.
- Pour ¼ of a gallon of paint (or primer if that is what you are starting with) into your dry, empty paint can. Professional interior painters in Surrey call this a “cut can.”
- Pour ½ of a gallon of paint into the paint tray and put the paint roller and mini roller into the paint. Doing this early will make painting easier because the paint needs time to fully saturate the roller material.
- Inspect the ceiling for water stains. If you’ve had a leak at some point, then there will probably be some brown stains on the ceilings.
- Examine the ceiling for nicks and dings, patch them with the spackle using a putty knife, sand flush to the ceiling once it has dried.
- Apply some oil based, stain blocking primer overtop of the water stains with the second mini roller. Allow too fully dry. Should take 1-2 hours. Open your windows for this step.
- Once the oil primer is fully dry, with your paint brush, cut in around the edge of the ceiling. If you are going to paint the walls afterwards, it is ok to get the paint on the walls. In fact, If the walls are being painted afterwards, interior painters in Surrey will usually not even use a brush but cram the mini roller right into the corner. Because it has material on the end, paint will fill in the corner.
- Cut around the light fixtures that you taped off, and you weren’t able to remove from the ceiling.
- If possible, go over the brush marks with the mini roller while they are still wet. This will erase the brush marks for a more uniform finish. Allow to dry.
- Roll out the fields of your ceiling. For the first coat, try to roll in one direction only. For example, paint your ceilings East and West. For the second coat, roll in the other direction, North and South, creating a cross pattern. If you do this, you will see fewer roller marks.
- Allow to fully dry.
- Repeat steps 11 through 15 for the second coat.
- If your ceilings were dark and you need more coats of paint, just repeat the above steps, alternating the direction that you roll for each coat.
- Once it looks good, you’re done, cleanup, or move on to the next step of painting your trim.
If after reading this, you’ve changed your mind and would like to hire professional interior painters in Surrey who know how to paint your ceilings with excellence, give us a call. Our interior painting services are second to none. Thanks for reading.
-Jeremy