The fresh look

Repainting any room can take quite a lot of time in the planning stage, but the effort is time well spent if you can get the decor right first time. Follow these simple tips and your newly painted room should be soon be up to date, and the fresh look will bring life to any house.

A trip to the DIY store is always your first decorating call pick up masking tape, several sizes of paintbrushes and at least two rollers, paint for your ceilings, woodwork and tester pots of the colours you'd like to use on your walls.

Back home, for your first step, you will need some masking tape and a fresh coat of paint on your ceiling. Remembering to protect any furniture that's remains in the room, ensure the ceiling has a good coat of paint, and then move onto the woodwork. Mask everything off carefully, anywhere that is in the immediate area of your woodwork, sand lightly, and repaint, either colour matching your wooden items throughout the house for a unified theme, or to accent your colour scheme. With the woodwork and ceiling fresh and clean, your walls will stand out all the more when repainted. Scuffed, dented skirting boards, marked doorframes and woodwork and doors are sometimes the only 'freshening' a room needs.

Paint reflects colours and highlights textures differently under various conditions. Testing your colours in several places in your room will give you an idea of what your room will look like when complete. Painting them on white areas serves to give your eyes an unbiased way to evaluate the colours without inference of your old choices.

Now the fun part! Use the tester pots to decide whether the colour scheme you've chosen works in both a light area and dark area of your room. In two areas of your room one directly opposite a window if possible) paint your squares of white, and within them, leaving a white buffer around the edges, paint on your pots!

Your immediate reaction is pivotal if it looks good on your walls straight away, in all of the places, congratulations!
See if they still look fine after several days.
Like it?
Keep it! Go get the large tubs, mask off and protect your woodwork and ceilings and you should have a fresh, vibrant room.

If the colour scheme didn't work, decide what will, and choose again. It might take time but this planning can save you a lot of heartache, time, and energy in the long run.