How to paint a wall at home, easily, from start to finish. If you have been mulling over painting a wall or a room for spring and don’t know where to start, well, this is where you start. By reading this blog. So without digression (though I am absolutely itching to tell you all about my new modular home farm) let’s see how it’s done.

Step 1: Identify the kind of wall paint you already have

Do you have a wall that has distemper? Or is your wall painted with emulsion paint. The most common way of knowing if your home has distemper is to run a hand on your wall. If it feels white and chalky, it’s distemper. If it doesn’t, it’s mostly emulsion paint. Depending on what kind of paint you are stuck with, you will decide the next course of action. Our home was already a shade of peach, but emulsion. It was also new so we did two coats of BR white Royale- water based. And then painted our bed headboard wall with Annie Sloan- Canvas.

You can see the difference between distemper and emulsions here.

If distemper and peeling, you will need to sand it down, add primer and then paint it with a good emulsion paint. I prefer Asian Paints Royale.

If emulsion and not peeling, you could go straight up with a primer (if using a lighter shade) and then paint. If going for a dark color, you can just paint over. You do not need to prime it again.

Step 2: Choosing the wall color

Start with a moodboard. Put your inspirations and paint choices on photoshop and see what are the kind of colors you are liking. Depending on the moodboard, choose a few shades. You can see my video on how to make a moodboard here.

Now, this is totally dependent on the kind of style or vibe you like but my one single most advice to you will be to SWATCH IT. Never go and buy paint seeing a photograph. Because photos are edited, the room lighting differs from space to space and what might look great in someone’s home may look dark and flat at yours. Just swatch it. See how you feel about the colors. You will get a feeler once you have lived with it for a day or two.

I am giving you all a list of paint colors in our home so you have an idea.

Bedroom: BR white – Asian Paints Royale + Annie Sloan canvas.

Rohan’s mancave: Asian Paints Royale + Midnight blue

Living room and dining- Asian Paints Royale BR white + Annie Sloan Cotswold green

My home office and studyAsian Paints BR white + Asian Paints royale beach comber

All paints were swatched on their respective walls except for BR white.

Tools you will need to paint your own home

Pole sander with 120 grit paper to begin with. If you are sanding. You don’t have to dhobi pachhad it. Sand it lightly. We did not do this because we didn’t need.

Painter’s tape– specially useful if you are painting half walls or borders.

If starting with paint directly, you will need a paint tray, a foam roller (stay away from lint rollers), a thin brush for corners and a thick brush for walls. Work in sections. Brush the color to the wall and then smoothen it with a foam roller. You can read my entire blog on demystifying rollers here

Mix 600ml of water to a liter of paint. This is what I have found works best.

Now work the color – 2 coats and dry.

How to take off paint drops on the floor

Don’t try to wipe it when its wet. It’ll be a mess. Instead, let it dry and then scrape them off with a tin scraper. Far easier and mess free.

And before I sign off, I just wanted to show you all the power of paint. Here’s a side by side of my home office/study.

Right. Coffee time. off!

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