Many people use the winter months for completing indoor home improvement projects. It’s a good time to paint, because nobody will want to be working inside once the weather turns warm. Moreover, a freshly painted living room, kitchen, or sunroom, can really brighten up a cold, dreary day.
Although selecting the right paint is important, even the highest quality brands can produce disappointing results if they’re not applied correctly; and a brush can make all of the difference. While natural bristles, made from animal hair, used to be considered better than synthetic (usually nylon) bristles, the newer synthetics are just as good. In fact, in some cases, they’re better than natural bristles, which go limp when used with water-based latex paints, leaving you with bristles that won’t bristle.
Get the highest-quality brushes that you can afford. You may spend a bit more, but the paint will glide on more smoothly and evenly, and the brushes, which revert to like-new condition when cleaned, will last for many years. They will also lose fewer bristles on the job, which is great news to anyone who has ever had to stop in mid-stroke to pluck a bristle out of wet paint.
To ensure that you are getting the best, inspect brushes before you buy them. Check the tips of the bristles for split ends, or flags; the more that they have, the better they will be at spreading the paint. Tap a brush on the edge of a hard surface; the fewer bristles it loses, the higher its quality. Except on wall brushes, bristles should be about 1½ times as long as a brush is wide, as this gives them more flexibility, especially for painting into corners and around trim.
Choose the right brush for your purpose. Use a wall brush, usually 3 to 4 inches wide, on large areas where you’re not using a roller. Use the smaller trim brush for painting trim and cutting in, a term that refers to painting around windows, doors, molding, and baseboards, before finishing the room with wall brushes or rollers. With its angled bristles, a sash brush, normally 1 to 2 inches wide, is ideal for close work, particularly around windows.
You can also get these same kinds of brushes with spongy urethane heads instead of bristles. These are popular because their tapered ends create straight, flat edges that make doing trim easier. They are also less expensive and, in essence, disposable.
Of course, if you’re not inclined toward home improvement projects, you may bristle at the mere thought of painting. In that case, you can brighten up your winter days by spending them in a warm, cozy sunroom from GazeboCreations.com. With all of the features available, you can use it as a spare room, entertainment room, home office, dining nook, or guesthouse. You can even install a hot tub and create your own backyard spa.
At GazeboCreations.com, you can design your own beautiful sunroom in a few steps, choosing from dozens of options, including insulation, partitions, ceiling fans, cupolas, skylights, decorative sliding glass doors, and several colors of vinyl siding, shingles, and trim.
To see the entire selection of sunrooms, gazebos, sheds, cabanas, and patio furniture, go to GazeboCreations.com. If you wish to contact one of their design consultants or customer service professionals, call 1-888-293-2339, or e-mail cs@gazebocreations.com.