PAINTING PREPS

An unpainted room can be intimidating. White patches of plaster and pencil marks call out to be hidden. In front of you there is a bucket of paint and ten linear miles to cover with the roller. You can feel the aching in your back, and you haven't even begun. Not only that, you still need to mask, cut in and lay out drop cloths.

MASKING

Use masking tape to prevent paint from being inadvertently applied to windows, molding, tile or other bathroom fixtures. I recommend at least one-inch tape. A wide tape will allow you to be careless with a brush.

The tape is directly applied to the surface you wish to keep paint-free. If you plan to be really sloppy or to use a spray gun, lay down newspaper and tape the edges.

If you use masking tape on a sunny window, get your painting done quickly and remove the tape as soon as possible because the heating action of the sun can cause the tape to stick too well. As this tape may only be removed with a razor blade, your house could look as though it is perpetually ready for the next hurricane, even if you live in Arizona.

DROP CLOTHS

A drop cloth is basically a big sheet that protects furniture and carpet from paint spatters. Plastic is ideal because of its impermeability. However, if you do not have plastic on hand, a brief trip to the linen closet should provide more than enough material to use as drop cloths.

The pattern on most sheets is uglier than anything you could do to them with a few dots of eggplant purple. The sheets that do not get too badly marked up can still be used in the guest bedroom. So what if they are a little crusty?

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