How To Clean Garage Walls Before Painting

Face it, the garage is often the forgotten workhorse of the home. It houses and protects your cars, sports gear, lawn equipment, tools, bikes, camping paraphernalia, and a whole host of other possessions. Yet the interior of many garages looks neglected—unfinished plywood and studs or taped drywall. Requite the hardest-working area of your house a simple facelift with the best paint for garage walls, and you'll exist surprised how much information technology transforms this functional space into 1 you don't mind spending fourth dimension in.

Proper Prep Is Vital

While it isn't difficult to pigment your garage, there are a few differences from painting regular walls in your home. Follow these steps before you lot paint garage walls and you'll exist much happier with the upshot.

Pace i: Protect the Rest of the Garage

Before you begin, take down anything hanging on your garage walls, and move everything abroad from the walls. Cover the floor, outlets, hardware, and anything else you don't want to become paint on.

Step 2: Ensure Proper Ventilation

Any kind of painting has fumes that are not salubrious if breathed in too much. Brand sure you lot have good ventilation when you begin your garage wall painting project.

Footstep 3: Clean Garage Walls

Garage walls and ceilings tend to be unfinished, often only taped and drywalled. Add in exposure to the outdoors every time y'all open up your garage, your cars going in and out, chemicals and other things stored in in that location, and it's no surprise garage walls are dirtier than the ones in your abode. They accept likely accumulated dust and clay, and may also have oil stains or water impairment. These stains can drain through pigment if left on the surface.

Make clean the walls with a Shop-Vac (recommended) or broom to remove the majority of dust and dirt. Then wash the walls with a mixture of water and dish lather. (Dawn cuts through whatsoever grease well.) There'due south no need for stronger cleaning chemicals or a pressure washer, which tin can impairment the soft surface. If the walls of your garage aren't that dirty, you tin can skip washing them.

Once your walls are make clean and stale completely, you lot can move on to the side by side step.

Step 4: Prep the Surface

Prepping your garage walls volition require different steps, depending on the cloth. If your walls are not already sheetrocked, y'all may have some extra work to become them ready for painting.

Drywall - Fill chips, dents, and boom holes with drywall compound and sand them smooth.
Wood - Multiple rounds of cleaning and sanding are required.
Brick - Clean with a wire brush and borax.
Concrete - Fill cracks and clean the surface well.

Step five: Apply Primer

After cleaning the walls, it's fourth dimension to prime number them. Determining which primer you need, or if you demand to prime at all, depends on what you're working with.

Drywall

Normal paints are not made for drywall, which is a porous fabric. Therefore, if your garage walls are unpainted drywall, y'all will need a skillful surface drywall primer, or PVA primer (polyvinyl acetate). A PVA primer seals the pores in sheetrock and creates an even glaze. It volition too make your pigment terminal longer.

If you skip primer and simply paint garage walls straight on the drywall, most of the pigment volition soak into the sheetrock. The finish volition be bumpy and uneven, and won't look every bit good as information technology could. So brand sure your hard work pays off past not skipping this essential prep.

Note: Although it may be tempting, don't recall yous'll save time by applying a paint and primer in 1 product. Drywall primers seal the surface better than a pigment and primer in one, which may require three to four coats. Using the right primer from the outset volition give you ameliorate results in fewer coats, and ultimately cost less, also.

There are many drywall primers to choose from, like Glidden, Behr, Kilz, Valspar, and Benjamin Moore, to name a few.

Painted Surface

If your garage walls are already painted, determine if a latex (water-based) or oil-based paint was used. If yous don't know, a unproblematic examination tin can tell you:

Make clean an surface area of the wall then soak a cotton wool ball or Q-tip in rubbing alcohol.
Run it back and along over the cleaned expanse.
If pigment comes off, it's latex; if paint doesn't transfer to your Q-tip, it's oil-based.

You don't need to prime number if your garage walls are already painted with latex paint, unless you're trying to cover a dark color with a new, lighter color or stains are bleeding through the garage wall pigment. If you do have stains, use an oil-based primer over the stain area (like Covertstain, Preprite Problock, or Kilz) and then let it dry. If the stains are large, apply primer to the entire wall.

If your Q-tip exam revealed that you're dealing with oil-based paint, you will need to use a bonding primer. Why? Because we suggest you employ an interior latex paint to pigment garage walls, and latex paint doesn't bond well to the end of oil paint. Without the proper surface prep, you run the risk of paint failure. Sanding the surface before applying the bonding primer can also assist information technology stick well. However, y'all can skip this pace if you cull to use another oil-based paint.

Some bonding primer options are: KILZ Adhesion Bonding Primer, Sherwin Williams Extreme Bail Primer, or X-I-Grand UMA Bonder.

It'due south Go Time: Garage Painting Tips

At present your walls are prepped and you lot're prepare to roll your mode to a sleeker, more finished-looking garage. Here are some tips to assistance you become results that will make whatsoever weekend-warrior proud.

Tip 1: Mind the Temperature

Painting your garage may seem similar a worthy winter home comeback project, but if yous alive where temperatures often dip below freezing in the colder months, it may be ameliorate left for leap. The same goes for the height of summer in hotter climates. Most paint manufacturers list minimum and maximum temperatures for painting because temperatures outside that range mess with the pigment curing process.

Tip 2: Applying Multiple Coats

Merely like painting any walls, you may want more than than 1 coat of paint to get the desired look. Simply make certain the current coat is dry before calculation another coat.

Tip 3: The Best Paint for Garage Walls, Ceilings, and Floors

The all-time paint for garage walls and ceilings is interior latex pigment, though oil-based paints can besides be used. Latex pigment is quick drying, can be thinned with water because it'southward water-based, and has less smell/vapors than oil-based paint. It'due south also easier to clean upward with soap and water, and is less irritating to your skin.

Oil-based paint takes longer to dry, must be thinned with pigment thinner, and has a strong odor and fumes. It is also much more than challenging to clean upwards, since you can't utilize soap and water.

WARNING: Exercise not use exterior paint in your garage, thinking it's more resistant to stains, scratches, scuffs, or mold. Exterior paints often have toxins that can be harmful if used indoors, even in a well-ventilated room. There are many durable interior brands that are condom options for garage wall paint.

The aforementioned paint can be used for garage walls and ceilings. Garage floors, however, must be painted with a make that is specifically designed to be used with cement. Usually homeowners seal garage floors with an epoxy-type coating, rather than paint.

Tip 4: The All-time Pigment Brands for Garage Walls

About pigment manufacturers have good options for painting your garage walls, from household names like Glidden and KILZ to eco-friendly newcomer Montage Signature. You lot don't demand to choose the about expensive paints and primers for painting your garage. Only make sure you select a PVA primer and the pigment is expert quality and latex-based. But y'all tin can't go wrong with Sherwin Williams Promar 200 Zero VOC Eggshell (latex), or the Sherwin Williams Pro Archetype Acrylic Satin or Semi-gloss.

Tip 5: The Best Color for Garage Walls

To brighten what can oftentimes exist a darker space, many people like to pigment garage walls white. Merely white shows every scuff, clay streak, and marker. It grows dirty fast in a space similar the garage that is regularly more exposed to dirt. However, dark colors tin can visually shrink your garage.

The best colors for garage walls autumn in between vivid white and dark colors, and can hide clay while notwithstanding looking good. Don't forget to take into account the color of your garage door, the door to your business firm, and the floor of your garage, if information technology'south colored.

The best colors for garage walls are:

Gray
Tan
Biscuit
Neutral blues and greens

About people prefer to paint garage ceilings white or match the walls.

Tip six: Tools Y'all Will Demand

Nothing is worse than discovering you forgot some essential supplies when you're in the middle of a painting project, with an open paint can and paint-covered brush or roller. Use this list to brand sure yous have everything you need earlier you are elbow-deep into painting your garage.

Shop-Vac or broom
Rags
Drop cloth
Painter's tape
Bucket
Soapy water
Paint roller with extendable handle (nine inches long with ½ inch nap)
Paint tray
Edging brush
Drywall compound, putty knife, sanding block (if you demand to fix any wall blemishes)
Drywall primer
Latex interior paint

Organize Your Newly-Painted Garage

Now that your garage is sporting its fresh new glaze of pigment, make it even more than pleasant and functional with the most convenient storage solutions by Garage Smart . Our next-generation products can assist you turn unused overhead infinite into versatile, 100% safe, and simple storage, like this tool rack that keeps all your lawn equipment together and out of the style.