Do-It-Yourselfers

Painting kitchen cabinets can be a cost-effective way to upgrade your kitchen. However, this painting process does require a lot of prep work and patience. If you are thinking about painting your kitchen cabinets, there are numerous steps that should be taken. Check out these six tips below to learn how to expertly paint your kitchen cabinets. 1. Clean Your Cabinets Before You Start Painting Paint won't stick to dirty or greasy cabinets. Before you start painting, make sure to use a dedicated grease remover to clean off any grease and ensure a clean surface. 2. Remove and Organize All the Hardware When painting cabinets, you will need to remove hardware like hinges and door handles. In addition, when you remove the hardware, make sure to note exactly where each piece goes. This will make it...

The color and condition of your walls can make or break the look of your home or office interior. Ensuring your walls are properly painted is necessary in maintaining a fresh, clean appearance. Check out a few painting mistakes to avoid to ensure a professional level paint job. 1. Not Preparing Surfaces Before slapping on a coat of paint, your walls need to be prepared. Walls need to be scrubbed clean and holes, dents, scratches, etc. need to be filled so that the surface is smooth and paint adheres properly. What needs to be done will depend on the condition of your walls, but a professional will put in the work to make sure the surfaces are ready before they start painting. 2. Not Protecting the Furniture and Floor Even the most careful of souls can...

Properly installed and painted drywall can help your rooms look like they belong in an interior design magazine. However, when drywall is not installed properly, rooms will look cheap and shoddy. Unfortunately, there are so many finishing methods that it can be hard to know what the finished product should look like. Signs Your Drywall was Not Properly Installed Certain imperfections are expected at lower levels of finish, but there are several flaws which are never acceptable in a quality installation job. These include: Visible joints Visible nail and screw holes Uneven corners Rough surfacesCrooked panels Sagging ceilings How to Repair Bad Drywall Step 1. Gather the Tools Your drywall repair toolkit should consist of an inside-corner knife, utility knife, flexible knives in widths of 3, 6 and 8 inches, a hammer, a screwdriver, a drywall...

Brick fireplaces can be beautiful focal points - or they can be total eyesores. If your home has a brick fireplace that makes you cringe or just doesn't work with your decor, let’s do something about it! Here are a few tips for painting a brick fireplace that can help you turn your nightmare into a dream.   First, choose a color or two that fits the feng shui you are trying to attain in that particular room. For example, if you have a floor-to-ceiling brick fireplace, you may want it to blend it in with the rest of the wall color for a smooth, contemporary, or more fluid look - or maybe you just want to take the heaviness out of darker colored bricks. However, if the brick stops at the mantle, you may choose...

Choosing a paint primer is overwhelming. There are hundreds of types of paint primer for hundreds of different purposes. Having some knowledge on which types of primers are good for the job you are doing will make the choice easier. Paint Primers for Wood New wood is thirsty and absorbs paint quickly. For bare interior wood, choose an oil based primer such as an enamel undercoat. An enamel undercoat will: Adhere better, seal the raw wood, hide imperfections, block wood tannin and bind wood fibers. This primer is also easy to sand out to a smooth finish. Shellac primer is also an option for tannin-content woods such as cedar and redwood. Shellac primers: are a century old primer, are quick drying and work well for spot priming wood knots, prevent rusty nail heads and stop severe water-based stains from bleeding through...