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How to paint white walls correctly: not as simple as you think

Paint a wall white

It sounds so simple, but conjuring a flawless white paint job on the smooth wall is really not. We show you how to paint white walls correctly, but also fast.

Old wallpaper is being replaced more and more frequently by painted walls . That’s nice and leaves a lot of possibilities to realize your own taste. The prerequisite for this are perfect walls – smooth surface, no cracks and no holes. A renaissance of the color white is taking place, mainly on the walls but you need to paint white walls correctly. 

The problem with mono-colour compositions is that they are very narrow in style when it comes to furniture, from the floor covering to the upholstered seating area. The Mediterranean wall paint just fits a gray carpet just as little as the squeaky colorful designer furniture. White walls do not have this problem. Everything fits in the room, what pleases. Theoretically, you could change your style of furnishing every year without repainting. In addition, white walls offer the invaluable advantage of simply brightening the rooms. In front of a neutral background, such as white, the individual pieces of furniture are much more effective.

The ridge between a deliberately used and modern white on the one hand and colorless lack of ideas on the other hand, however, is narrow. This is first and foremost related to the quality of the wall and the paint. White only looks modern and elegant when it has passed perfectly. Every little hump, every crack and every pimple presents itself prominently on a pure white background. And just on white, the color of purity, cleanliness and innocence, such blemishes work quickly as intended and not skillful.

The foundation: a smooth wall

The color white on smooth surfaces is many times more elegant than on textured plaster or woodchip. Another important aspect is that you need less color for smooth walls than rough ones because the surface area is smaller. Here are three ways to get your walls done quickly and easily:

  • Non-woven wallpaper : Just stick to the wall and paint over. The surface is fine-pored and, if necessary, again over-paperable.
  • Surface Smoothing : Not quite without craftsmanship, but it will be a seamless and hard surface.
  • Attachment shells : In cases of hardship, simply stick a plasterboard to the wall using tie-down binders.

Good preparation is everything

Some advice tips are so absolute and important that you can not repeat them often enough. One of these is the following: Careful preparation of the substrate is crucial for the quality of the paint! The least it to have walls under the wallpaper in such a good condition that you can immediately strike. So it’s about filling holes and cracks. Need some holes still (the picture should hang later in the same place), leave the dowel in it and turn a screw.

Experience shows that even with the most careful filling only rarely a really smooth wall comes out. Our tip therefore: If all repair work is done on the wall, rent a big sander at the hardware store and sand off the wall once. There you will find the professional machines that are better suited than conventional orbital sanders. Although they are useful for removing wallpaper, they can suffer from dust.

Stripping wallpaper off

Perforating instead of scraping: With a nail roller you can perforate the old wallpaper thoroughly. With this, you will pave the way for the subsequently sprayed water behind the scenes. There it dissolves the paste.

White walls show every mistake

The quality of your paint also depends very much on the choice of wall paint. To put it clearly: Branded products are generally better than no-name products. Namely, the lower price results from a lower proportion of white pigment (usually titanium oxide), which is reflected in a lower opacity.

However, if you have to paint your wall two or three times instead of once with a low-cost paint, the price advantage due to the larger quantity of paint required is quickly gone, not to mention the amount of work involved. Cheap colors usually have no declaration regarding their opacity. Good ones offer class 1 opacity (means at least 99.5% opacity) or class 2 (98%).

Moisten paint roller

In order to keep the color pickup of the paint roller the same from the first to the last stroke (and thus also the painting), moisten the roll with clear water before the first immersion in the paint bucket. But beware: you should water the whole roll vigorously and evenly, but then wring it out just as thoroughly. With a wet roll, the white wall paint will run down the wall. So roll out well, preferably in an old towel, and knock out the roll several times.

gerhardt-richter Gerhardt Richter is a writer and a trainer at trade technical colleges, specializing in carpentry, plumbing, mechanics and construction.