Painting Tips
Painting Safety Equipment Checklist: PPE and Job Safety
The painting safety kit comes down to four things you are protecting: your lungs, your eyes, your skin, and your ability to stay on the…
Painting Tips
How to Test for Lead Paint: Kits, Labs and Inspectors
If your home was built before 1978 in the United States, assume lead paint may be present until testing says otherwise. Lead paint was banned…
Painting Tips
Low-VOC vs Zero-VOC Paint: What the Labels Really Mean
Low-VOC and zero-VOC are regulatory labels about how much volatile organic compound content a paint contains, measured against a threshold set by whichever authority governs…
Painting Tips
How to Get Rid of Paint Smell
The only thing that genuinely removes paint smell from a room is air exchange. Everything else either masks it, adsorbs a small fraction of it,…
Painting Tips
How to Ventilate a Room While Painting
Ventilating a room properly means creating air exchange, not air movement. You need fresh air entering at one point and stale air leaving at another,…
Painting Tips
How Long After Painting Can You Sleep in the Room?
There is no single number, and anyone who gives you one is guessing. For a modern water-based wall paint in a room that has been…
Painting Tips
Are Paint Fumes Dangerous? What They Are and How to Reduce Your Exposure
Paint fumes can be dangerous, and how dangerous depends almost entirely on three things: what kind of paint you are using, how much air is…
Painting Tips
How Much to Charge to Stain Kitchen Cabinets
Quick answer: Staining existing cabinets is really a refinishing job. Count doors, drawers, and box faces, then price from hours: stripping, sanding, staining, topcoating, plus…
Painting Tips
How Much to Charge to Stain Wood Furniture
Quick answer: Price furniture staining by the hour, not by size. Estimate strip, sand, stain, topcoat, and dry handling time, add materials, cover overhead, then…
Painting Tips
Deck Sealer vs Stain: Which One Does Your Deck Need?
Quick answer: A clear sealer repels water but adds little or no UV protection, so it needs recoating far more often. A stain carries pigment,…