Basement Remodeling: Finish & Painting

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm Jeremy Blackwell. I'm here today to help you get started on your basement remodel project. After your drywall has been taped and textured it's ready to cover up with paint, which is the next step. Painting is another job that a lot of homeowners like to take on themselves, and is quite simple if you are willing to put some time and effort into it. Drywall and paint are actually, all the steps that go into finishing your basement are important in the final product, but drywall and paint are very important because that is what people see. If you spend extra time getting your drywall to look just right, and then cover it up with a really bad paint job, it'll be really noticeable. If you don't spend enough time on your drywall, your paint will show everything that you're trying to cover up. So, you want to spend a lot of time on paint, doing prep work. It actually, there's more time involved with doing a good prep job than there is in the actual painting itself. In a basement, usually, you don't have stuff in the way, so it's real easy to caulk all your baseboards, caulk all the trim work, and putty all the nail holes that have been left, and to mask off. And I would just rent a sprayer from any Home Depot, Lowes, any of those stores can rent you a sprayer and you could come in and spray a primer, and I would suggest a primer, a sealer primer, that will seal the drywall so the drywall doesn't soak up some of the paint. Paint with the primer, and then do your finish coat in whatever color you choose. The more colors you choose, the more masking and prep work would be involved. So if you're willing to put in the time there, you can, you can get a good reward out of it later on. This is a great example of what can happen on a paint job if you're not willing to put in the time and effort that it takes to produce a good job. What's happened here is, first of all, they caulked it incorrectly, there's not enough caulk and sometimes there's way too much caulk. And they haven't let it dry, and so, what also they've done here is they've used the sprayer in a confined space and sprayed it on too heavy. So the paint started to run. So be aware that there are some little tricks to the trade, but if you're willing to put in some time and effort, you can end up with a good job. Another thing to think about when you're painting your basement is consistency. A lot of people, you'll want to spray your primer on, and then spray your coat on, and maybe even back roll it. And back rolling gives you a consistent look throughout the whole wall. If you take a good look at this ceiling, this is a good example of the sprayer running out of paint and stopping the use of the sprayer and then starting the use of the roller, or vice-versa. Someone starts to roll a wall, and decides it's going to take very, too long and decides to change to a sprayer, and doesn't back roll it correctly. So this is a good example of two different applications. You want to try to stay consistent when you're going to try to paint your own basement."