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Painting, decorating and home improvement tips blog

12 essential tools for your DIY decorating toolbox

Posted by Adrian
April 4th, 2011

Toolbox graphic

Tools you should have in your toolbox

The following is a basic list of tools you should consider having in your decorating toolbox, you may need more than those listed but these are really the twelve essentials to get you started. This list doesn’t include sundries such as sandpaper.

Dustsheet, heavy and light

Dustsheets are needed to cover over furniture and flooring, they can be heavy weight or lightweight or even plastic disposable ones depending on the job they are required for.

Scrapers

You may find having more than one scraper of use, a thin bladed one for things like opening cracks and a wider one for filling cracks, scraping walls and ceilings and removing wallpaper.

Screwdriver

A selection of screwdrivers would be useful for removing things such as shelves, door furniture and electrical items* such as wall lights, ceiling lights, switches and sockets.

Sharp knife

This can be used to open tubes of decorators caulk, packets of filler and wallpaper paste and for cutting wallpaper, or even to sharpen your pencil !!

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Cleaning paint trays and paint kettles

Posted by Adrian
January 15th, 2010

Diagram of a paint tray and a paint kettle (copyrignt Adrian Rayfield)

Don’t clean out paint trays or paint kettles

Use tin foil to cover then throw away.

Tired of cleaning out your used paint trays or paint kettles?
Use this useful tip and save yourself hours of cleaning.

Take your paint tray or paint kettle, get some tin/aluminium foil, and tear off a length enough to cover the inside of the paint tray or kettle. You could also use cling-film if you prefer.

Now cover the inside of the tray or kettle with the foil, be careful not to pierce the foil with your finger. You may want to add a second layer.

Now tip the paint into your covered tray or kettle and paint away.

When you are done painting, tip out any remaining paint back into the paint can, then remove the foil and dispose of it.

If you want to paint a feature wall this solution is ideal. It is quick and easy for changing the colour in the paint tray and paint kettle from feature wall colour to main colour without having to wash it out first.

A simple but effective decorating tip!

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