Amateur house painters need a lot of help to make their houses look wonderful. Scores of equipments specialized for painting are available in the market and they can help any weekend handyman to achieve great results, as if they are professionals. From simple brushes to blowtorches, these equipments are designed to make our tasks cost less, look better and faster to complete. In fact, it is possible to paint an average-sized house in just a couple of days. Simple enhancements, like extension handle for rollers can allow us to reach higher areas without using ladder. However, there are other specialized aids that can help us tackle difficult spots. We don’t have to spend many hours painting our house, because we could do this very easily. Self dispensing calking guns, electric drill attachments and pre-mixed paints can make short work of preparation. We could use soap and water to clean up rubber paints and special cleaner solution for oil-based paints. There are techniques we could use to make it much easier to paint our home and we could achieve nearly the same results every time.

In fact, painting is not only about using paint. Common paints are consisted of mineral pigments, thinners and other organic vehicles. We could also use varnishes, which are resins dissolved in thinners. Enamels are essentially pigmented varnishes. Shellac is lac gum and alcohol. Lacquers can be both clear or pigmented and they can be nitrocellulose with thinners. Stains can be pigmented oil. The exterior of our house could be exposed to weathering and we need to use special exterior paints and varnishes. Interior wall paints should offer good wash-ability and bright colors. Floor enamels should be designed to resist abrasion. Lacquers should be used when we need to get rapid drying. There are special formulas that offer resistance to fading and mildew. We may also need to use waterproofed paint in humid areas and interior paint shouldn’t release fumes. Interior paints should also provide decorative effects, improve interior lighting and increase sanitary conditions. There are different types of interior paints, such as water paints, gloss, semi gloss, flat, one-coat flats and wall primers.

Wall primers are also known as primer sealers and they can be applied directly to wallboard, bare plaster and any porous surfaces. We should apply primers with a good wide wall brush. One-coat flat paints are actually thinned organic solvent paints and we could accomplish finish, sealing and priming with these paints. They are available as thin paste and we could use affordable thinner to start painting immediately. The amount of thinner needed is usually about one-fourth the volume of the one-coat flat paints. We may also use gloss interior, semigloss and flat paints, but they may vary significantly in hiding power, gloss level and other factors. High-gloss enamels should be used if we want to obtain good hiding power, while flat paints could have the lowest gloss. Water-thinned interior paints should be made from gloss water paints, resin emulsion, casein and calcimine.