Here are a few time-tested tips for fixing painting mistakes.
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5 Pro Tips for Avoiding Painting Mistakes
Updated on Aug. 22, 2024
Painting is one of the most popular ways to refresh a space or update the look of a home. Things can get a bit tricky and mistakes can be made, but that shouldn’t keep you from attempting your painting project.
Mark Kobriger of Door County, WI, has been a professional painter for over 20 years. Much like a DIY’er, he had to try and fail a few times on the road to having the wealth of knowledge that he has today. So I thought it would be fun and informative to ask him about some of the most epic fails he experienced or witnessed that the rest of us could relate to and learn from.
Here is some of his well-earned advice:
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Pay Attention to Where You Put Your Paint Bucket
Back when he was a young painter, Kobriger was painting a ceiling. “So number one rule…when you’re rolling a room, you don’t have a tray of paint anywhere… that stuff gets spilled.”
Instead, painters typically use a five-gallon bucket with a screen and about four inches of paint at the bottom. In this case, Kobriger’s bucket was on the floor, and he was using an extension pole so he could dip the paint roller into the bucket while on his ladder.
“I just remember getting sidetracked,” says Kobriger. “And as I’m climbing down the ladder, I put my foot right into that bucket!” In addition to scraping his shin on the screen, his shoe was saturated. The lesson here is to stay alert and always pay attention to where you put your tools.
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Add Water to Paint When Painting Outdoors in the Sun
Once while working in Colorado, Kobriger’s team was painting a nice downtown building. He was in charge of painting the doors—the metal exterior fire doors. “I just remember it was so warm out that day, and what I should have done is probably wait and done it first thing in the morning, or just on a different day, but I didn’t.”
The paint dried while he was brushing it on. “I ended up pulling the paint… it got so messy in the end, I had to sand the whole door down again and start over!”
“The trick I would have used today, if I had to paint that door in the afternoon sun… I would have added water to my paint.” Kobriger explains that paint is water-based and house painters are constantly adding water to the paint. It’s not to thin it out or make the paint last longer— it’s because it’s hot out and the water in the paint is evaporating as you’re painting.
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Make Sure to Follow Extension Ladder Safety
Extension ladders can be very dangerous. “I had a buddy break both his arms by falling off of a ladder,” says Kobriger. In this instance, his buddy hadn’t noticed that the rung lock hadn’t latched. “He shifted on his ladder a little bit and his whole ladder started sliding. He had to jump.”
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 22,000 ladder-related injuries occurred in 2020. So while it seems like common sense, any time a ladder is involved, you have to take the time for ladder safety. “I have kids. I wanna live,” says Kobriger. “I don’t want to get hurt, you know.”
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Invest in Safety Equipment
“I’ve seen painters do the craziest stuff… [like] putting a bucket underneath the [feet] of the ladder so you can line your ladder up,” says Kobriger. “There’s tools out there that do those same things that make it safe.”
Kobriger uses a lateral ladder leveler to help level out the ladder when working on roofs touching up exterior trim paint or other uneven surfaces. Instead of trying to be creative, check out solutions that are already available and have been safety tested.
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Prep is Half the Job and Equally Important
Exterior paint prep can include sanding, scraping, caulking, priming, or power washing. Essentially, it’s all the steps involved in getting the surface ready to paint. Sometimes it takes days to make sure a house is ready for paint, but all the setup is essential when making sure the finished project is beautifully done.
It was a lesson Kobriger learned early on in his career. He was painting a house with cedar siding but misunderstood exactly what the siding was.
“Because of that, I used the wrong product.”
It rained that night. When he went back to the house the next day, everything looked beautiful— except for the giant bubbles of water in the paint! Water got behind the paint because it hadn’t adhered to the wood. In this case, the cedar was treated so it wasn’t permeable.
“I peeled it all off and started over,” said Kobriger with disdain in his voice. If he had known, he would have prepped the surface with a primer or used a self-priming paint that adheres to the surface, so a treated wood wouldn’t have mattered. Make sure to examine the surface to map out what is needed to prep.
And know that prepping is just as important as painting.
