How Do You Paint the Ceiling? Tips for Getting the Job Done Right

It doesn’t take Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel to make you realize just how important ceilings are to your home décor. They are easily one of the largest decorative features in your home. In art as well as architecture, height implies power, making your ceiling one of the most potentially dominant aspects of your interior decorating scheme. Ceilings are the perfect way to set the tone for a room and make a subtle, yet positive, first impression on guests.

However, you only get one chance at a first impression, and if your ceiling is shoddy, you can bet they won’t be impressed. So, how can you paint your ceiling the right way?

Invest in a Good Ladder

Michelangelo may have painted his fair share of heavenly clouds on the Sistine Chapel, but he didn’t float on one while doing so. To paint your ceiling efficiently and effectively, you’ll need to invest in a good ladder.

That means having a ladder that is completely sturdy and stable. The last thing you want to worry about when painting your ceiling is whether or not you’re going to fall off the ladder. You’ll also want to make sure that the ladder is tall enough for your purposes without bumping up against the ceiling. In addition, your ladder needs to be portable enough that you can move it to different locations with ease.

Rollers Are Your Friend

While you may choose to do some fine detailing and touch up with a brush, chances are you’ll be doing most of your ceiling painting with a roller, so you need to make sure you have a good one. Your roller should be sturdy, lay paint on smoothly, and be fresh. If the roller brush starts to shed fuzz, it’s time to change it out for a new one. Be sure to wash your roller brush after every usage to avoid staining it.

Rollers allow you to do the most important thing for ceiling painting – apply smooth, even strokes up and down your ceiling with ease.

Get Good Extension Poles

In addition to your rollers, you’ll also want to invest in a good extension pole. This can make it much easier to paint your ceiling from the ground. That said, you don’t want to overdo it on size. A large extension pole means more to carry, which can make your arms tired in a hurry. As a rule of thumb, your extension pole should be a few feet longer than the distance from the floor to the ceiling.

Plan for Drips

It should not come as a surprise that, when painting your ceiling, gravity is going to cause a fair amount of drips. Unless you want painting your ceiling to turn your floor into a Jackson Pollock painting, therefore, you need to plan ahead and protect it against paint drips. The same goes for any other fixtures that lay beneath your ceiling. Take a plastic tarp or similar covering and make sure the entire area is covered before you start painting your ceiling, and check to make sure paint isn’t seeping through.

With these tips, you can transform your ceiling into your own understated masterpiece.