Painting Tips

Yesterday I painted my garage wall from 9 AM-5 PM. I will post after photos later, but for now I want to post a couple of painting tips.

1. Save your empty plastic mayonnaise jars. They make great containers for your leftover paint. Leaving a small amount of paint in a large paint can takes up more space and can get rusty and old after a while. With a mayonnaise jar, it is easy to see what color the paint is and easy to access for touch-up jobs. Write the name of the color, code number for color, what type of paint (satin, eggshell, etc.) and what room you used it in.

2. Save old containers to put paint in. Who wants to carry a big can of paint around when cutting in the corners and ceiling? I really liked this old vinegar container. I cut part of the top off and had a nice handle to carry my paint around with.

3. Teflon Paint Tray
I have always put a grocery sack over my paint tray so that I don't have to clean the tray when finished. Last year I found this Teflon paint tray for around $5-10 and thought it was genius! It claimed that the paint would just peel off after drying. I have used this several times now and can tell you all of the pros and cons. Sometimes I like to switch colors and don't want to wait a day for the old paint to dry before using the next color. If you leave it for a week or longer it will dry too much and be very hard to peel off. When peeling off the paint, the thicker areas come off great, but where the paint is thinner it is harder to get off.

Thick part peeling off great!Thin parts that wouldn't come off.

Since this tray didn't cost much more than a regular tray I think it is a good find. I like it and will keep on using it. I will just continue to use my grocery sack over it when I want to paint with more than one color in the same day.