In winter, when you’re longing for the return of warm weather, the sight of a desolate backyard, a deck with no patio furniture, or an abandoned gazebo, can be quite depressing. When things look this bleak, one good way to cheer yourself up is to give the indoors a fresh look.
Winter is the most popular time of the year for doing interior painting. Not only does it lighten your mood, but it gives you some stunning new rooms to show off when summer comes and you’re entertaining more often. Before you begin painting, however, you must properly prepare the walls, or the present imperfections and blemishes will still be there to taunt you, but in a different color; and disappointing results can be more disheartening than the weather.
First, take down all of the curtains in the room, and remove everything from the walls, including pictures, nails, hooks, outlet covers, and switch plates; then cover up all of the furniture, floors, cabinets, and fixtures, with drop cloths. You can also use plastic bags, old shower curtains, and, on the floors, flattened cardboard boxes. Take special care to protect appliances and electronics, as dust, rather than drops of paint, may pose the biggest threats to them.
After you have shielded all of your valuables, clean the walls and trim thoroughly with hot water and detergent, rinse them completely, and patch up any holes or cracks with spackling compound. After it dries, sand it down, and wipe away any residue.
While you’re waiting for the spackle to dry, cover other things in the room that you want to safeguard. For example, when you walk or stand on a drop cloth, it can pull away from the wall slightly, and expose the edges of the rug, so you may want to put masking tape around the entire perimeter of the carpet. This little extra step will eliminate a ton of aggravation if paint drips from your brush, or trickles down the wall.
If you’re very skilled, you may not need tape to protect trim or windows; but if you do, use painter’s tape, especially on painted surfaces, because it stays in place, yet doesn’t take anything with it when you pull it off. You can easily protect door handles, knobs, and hinges, by wrapping them in foil; and the simplest way to cover windows is by applying strips of damp newspaper to them.
However, if you decide you’d rather have a gazebo that you can enjoy year-round, instead of painting the house, go to GazeboCreations.com, where you’ll find one with all of the comforts of home.
GazeboCreations.com features beautiful cedar, treated pine, and vinyl gazebos that you can customize for yourself, with the help of the Gazebo Wizard. With all of the options available, including insulation, storm windows, flooring, roofing, decorative railings, wiring, built-in benches, ceiling fans, skylights, and cupolas, you can even live in your gazebo if you want to. You can design as many gazebos as you wish, save them to your own personal gallery, and change them anytime you like.
A gazebo from GazeboCreations.com can also be used as a home office, guest house, cottage, entertainment center, hobby room, study, or, with a hot tub installed, a backyard spa.
To see the entire collection, visit GazeboCreations.com. If you wish to contact a design consultant or a customer service representative, call 1-888-293-2339, or e-mail cs@gazebocreations.com.