If you decide to renovate the interior of your home, painting can be one of the most effective measures to take. However, painting the ceiling can be kind of difficult. Some things to consider before getting started are, how high is your ceiling and what’s its shape.
If you have a high ceiling, you need to use ladders in a safe way. An A-frame ladder will help you to move around, but be safe! Never go all the way to the top of the ladder. Seriously, it’s not safe. There are other options like scaffolds, that are beneficial if you are working for long periods of time and provide a sturdy platform. This can help too for high walls that come with high ceilings. The problem with scaffolds is that they are big, hard to move around and are more expensive than ladders.
Picking paint
When choosing a ceiling paint, you’ll want to buy one that is formulated for the ceiling. Ceiling paints have features that will help with application. They dry slow, don’t splatter and have low or no gloss. If the house is not empty we recommend moving the furniture out of the room, this will help you to move around more freely when painting. If the furniture can’t be moved then protect it with canvas drop cloths or plastic. It’s best to fully cover the floor as well, putting a liquid on a ceiling without getting a drop is hard for even the most experienced painters.
After everything is protected, if you are not planning to paint the walls you will want to mask them off with plastic and painter tape around the perimeter where the ceiling meets with the wall. Unless you are spraying we recommend using a technique called “tape-calking” to help create a straight line where the ceiling meets the wall. This is done by applying a very small amount of caulking along the edge of the tape to essentially glue the edge down, preventing any paint from going underneath the edge or “bleeding” through.
If the ceiling has any stains created by leaks or other things, it can be hard to cover with just paint. If that is the case, you can use stain blocking primer, to make a uniform finish, however if the wall has been deformed in any way you may want to have a drywalled fix it before painting. Unless you are spraying, we recommend brushing the edges before rolling the middle areas. Just use a brush to paint along the edge of the ceiling, when you roll you want the sections you cut in to still wet so it blends in better, you can break it up into sections to help achieve this, or you can use a small 3-4” roller that you roll on top of the cut-ins as you go. When rolling ceilings use an extension pole to help you to reach most of the ceiling faster. When painting a small ceiling or a house with people living in it, it is often better to brush and roll.
We hope that this was helpful to you. Feel free to leave a comment below if it was, or if you have any questions!
