Painting Safety

Painting safety makes your interior painting job safer, but also more efficient. Avoiding stains saves you a lot of time cleaning. If you get your friends and family to help you, make sure they enjoy their work and are safe while they’re doing it. Give them good food and your job turns into a fun social occasion.

Check it out:

Tips for an organized working space
Stains
ladders
plastic foil
fresh air
A painting bucket for handy up-the-ladder-work

Tips for an organized working space

If you paint a whole room, take as much furniture out as possible. What is left, should be meticulously covered with plastic. If the floor has to be done too: all the better. First do the room painting, then the floor. If the floor is already finished: cover it with thick protective plastic foil. Invest in quality, if you can. When you have soft, thin plastic, dragging a chair or a ladder over the floor easily tears a hole in it - and paint will get through.

You can use newspapers for covering too, but only if you don’t have light carpeting on the floor (ink will rub off on it).

Create a well covered table, in a corner where no one has to walk, and keep the paints and eventual solvents there.

Ladders and scaffolding

A ladder that leans against the wall should never be put on plastic foil. If your room is big enough, rent a small scaffold, or a ladder that stands firmly. A ladder with a small platform, or a hook to hang a bucket on, can be very handy. It leaves your hands free when you’re up the ladder. Always check the ladder or the scaffold, before climbing on it. And please, don't use chairs to stand on...

A painting bucket

For extra painting safety: get a bucket with a hinge, just a little bigger than your paint cans, and put the paint can in it. When you get up the ladder, hang it on your arm, or even: tie it on a string around your neck. You’ll have both hands to hold on to the ladder.

Stains

Paint in your hair is no fun, even when others may think so. Tie your hair together and put a hat on. The best protection for your clothes is, putting on old clothes. Paper painting overalls look great, but they really are no use (to my experience, that is). Paint goes right through them. Shoes are vulnerable too: wear really old ones. You do need a good grip with your feet, though.

Paint stains really are best to be removed right away. Then you still can without trouble. But if you find stains when you remove the plastic: don’t despair. The paint looks dry but is still soft. Scratch them off with a hard brush, or a piece of wood. Not when the stain is on new paint though, then just paint them over.

Fresh air

Even when you use acrylic paints, make sure you have some fresh air. Acrylic paints are chemical products too - funny gases come out, doing who-knows-what to your state of mind when getting too concentrated. Your paint will dry better with fresh air too.

Take good breaks

Breaks with drinks and good food will surely add up to your painting safety - when people are hungry or tired, they go less alert. And when you feed your workers well, making sure they have a good time during lunch break, your painting job can be a really pleasant social activity.