Painting Your Ugly Resale Flat - Part 1

Ok, so you have bought your resale flat? And the colors are ugly and you want to paint it off with your desired color, so after weeks of looking through the internet and online shops, you finally decided to go to the DIY store at the nearest shopping center because you are too lazy like me.

If your flat's color is as horrid as mine, (living room - 3 colors, beige and purple with a lining in between with sun and some horrible stencillings, master bedroom - violet, bedroom one - yellow, bedroom two - Hulk green), and boy you'r in luck. I have gone through the gruesome experience with bei and hanz and I am here to offer you real solid good advice.

Choosing your paint:

If your ex-flat owner really has a horrible sense of color then the first thing is to ask him/her to paint the bloody house in white for you. I'm serious! You paid for it, now get something in return. We were just being too nice, we thought oh ok, yah, we can paint ourselves. But, it was not easy.

If you want to be a nice couple like us and you decided to paint the whole darn flat yourselves then be prepared. You need to get a coating paint, we use martex to pain the whole house white first before any final color. Two coats to be enough. If the underlay color is too dark, you should use oil-based white paint to prime the whole area first. I saw my dad mixing the paint with turpentine and it stays and covers the dark wall quite effectively.

You can always go online to search for your favourite colors, can even opt for odourless or easy to wash ones. Matte or satin-like? Choose yourself.

Equipment:

- You need to get putty to seal the holes on the walls after taking off the painting from the wall.

- A scrapping tool to scrap off double-sided tape on the wall, and to scrape off dried paint on the floor. (Trust me, you will need it)

- Lots of newspapers and masking tape, to prevent paint from dripping to the floor and your windows

- Turpentine

- Rollers and brushes, after trying with different types of rollers, we found out that the sponge rollers are the most effective and durable ones. They are easy to wash and easy to maintain. They cover the most areas as compared to other fabric ones. And for brushes, get soft ones for your corners, one small and one medium should be more than enough.

- Extension rods, for painting of the ceiling or high walls

- Lastly, plenty of enthusiasm!

I will cover on the procedures in my next post.