The Financials of Decorating

When it comes to updating the look of your home on a tight budget, a spot of painting and decorating is by far the best option. If you want to keep your costs to an absolute minimum, then planning ahead, careful preparation and making sure you have the right tools for the job are all essential steps.

A fresh coat of paint is by far the cheapest and most effective way to transform the look of walls, ceilings, skirting boards and even kitchen cabinets or items of furniture. If you don’t have much DIY experience, paint is also relatively forgiving. Should you make a mistake, it’s normally quite easy to cover it up.

Many of the larger DIY stores have regular paint sales and buy-one-get-one-free offers linked to vouchers that you can find on the internet, so be sure to check what is available on sites such as MoneySupermarket to find all the available discounts before you part with any of your hard-earned cash.

Keeping Costs Down

Another good way of keeping costs down is to ensure you purchase only what you need for the job in hand. Buying too much paint is a waste of money while not having enough will mean having to leave half-way through in order to get more. You can find lots of handy paint and wallpaper calculators online to help you get your figures right.

Painting light colours over dark surfaces will require more coats and therefore more paint than painting over a similar shade. Even paints advertised as needing just ‘one coat’ may require several applications if the difference between the two colours is too dramatic.

Once you have decided on your paint, a selection of good-quality brushes should be your next purchase, though some people find paint pads easier to handle. For large areas, rollers can apply paint three times faster than using a brush but can splash paint around and will need to be replaced more often.

Brushes and Other Essentials

Even the most careful painters end up with the odd drip so be sure to cover up carpets and any items of furniture and always paint ceilings before walls. When using a roller or a paint pad, trying slipping an old plastic bag around your tray before adding the paint. This will make it easy to reuse the same tray several times, even if you are painting in more than one colour.

If you choose rollers, you’ll still need a selection of brushes for door frames, skirting boards and mouldings. Also, while pads and rollers work well on smooth surfaces, brushes are better for textured surfaces.

Save money on masking tape by using an inch-wide, angled brush to finish the edges. Some types of masking tape – especially the cheaper varieties – can let paint bleed through and therefore deliver an inferior finish. In any case, the time taken to apply and remove masking tape is better spent simply painting. If you do make a mistake, immediately wiping away the excess with a damp cloth will usually put things right.

A final option worth considering is to hire a professional to do the painting and decorating for you. Not only will this save your time and effort and guarantee that the job is finished to a high standard but it could also save you money too. Not having to invest in brushes, ladders, protective clothing and materials that you might not use again for some time might be cheaper in the long run.

Can I paint over lining paper?

A popular search that often comes up is, “Can I paint over lining paper?” Many people are not sure what lining paper is meant for or how to use it. This post will hopefully answer any of your questions about lining paper and its uses.

What is lining paper meant for

Lining paper has always primarily been used to give a smooth base in which to wallpaper over, however, a few years back wallpaper wasn’t fashionable and plain emulsioned walls, were all the rage but people soon realised that their walls were not that perfect, hence why they had the woodchip or embossed anaglypta or highly pattered wallpaper they had on the walls. So, the answer was to line the walls before painting them with emulsion. So yes, you can paint over lining paper.

About ten years ago it was rare to hang wallpaper but very common to remove wallpaper and line the walls and emulsion them. Even though plain emulsioned walls are still very common today there has been a return to wallpaper in the last few years and wallpapered feature walls have become very common, this is partly fashion but also cost, as wallpaper can be very expensive.

Lining paper

If you wish to emulsion your walls rather than wallpaper them but the plasterwork isn’t wonderful you can hang lining paper and then emsulsion over it, just remember, lininig paper will not give you wonderful smooth walls that are blemish free, it isn’t the quick and easy fix. You still need to fill and prepair the walls before lining them and you may still see some lumps and bumps.

If this is the route you wish to take you need to know how to hang the lining paper.

To cross line or not?

Cross-lining is where the lining paper is hung horizontally rather the vertically like traditional wallpaper, normally if you are going to be emulsioning over the lining paper you could hang it as you would wallpaper, vertically.

Once you have hung the lining paper you need to allow it to fully dry before you emulsion over it, this will take normally between 12 – 24 hours depending on drying conditions.

Cost and budget

We are all budget conscious these days and have to budget for all expenses, decorating is no exception. The cost of wallpaper these days can make decorating a room expensive, lining your walls and emulsioniing them is a good alternative to paying out for wallpaper for the entire room, having a wallpapered feature wall can make a focal point in any room. The advantage of emulsioning your walls is that you can change the look and feel of a room fairly cheaply just buy buying another colour of emulsion, you can keep on trend with the colour of the year rather than the latest fashionable wallpaper trend.

Ware and tear if you have young children or pets may also sway your choice, if you pay £30 upwards for per roll of wallpaper and the kids decide to draw all over it you may not be best pleased! If they do it to an emulsioned wall you may not be best pleased still but it can be sorted out quickly and cheaply buy painting over it.