Tips For Painting Your Home With Kids Around

Painting the interior of your home, whether you live in a mobile home or a stationary home, can be both fun and tricky. It’s fun because you get to pick the colors you want and you get to feel like you’ve accomplished something good once you’ve complete the job. However, you need to make sure that you do things the right way.

If you have children there are definitely a few more things that go into picking the paint and painting your home than if you didn’t have kids. Kids can cause all sorts of damage to walls and the paint on them (and so can pets). Here are some tips for creating beautifully painted walls when you have kids around.

Use Kilz

Kilz is a primer you can use on your walls before you put your new paint on them that will help cover up any stains and markings on the wall that could show through your fresh new paint job. You still need to wash the walls before painting, and if there are any loose paint spots you’ll want to scrape them as well. If your walls have any holes or indents you’ll want to plaster them or use some spackling and then sand it down before applying Kilz.

Pick Non-toxic Paint (If It’s An Option)

When you head to the paint store to buy paint talk to the professionals about the ages of your children. You may be able to invest in some non-toxic paint for younger children. Of course, paint fumes themselves can be fairly toxic, and you’ll want to send the kids off to grandma’s or a friend’s while you’re doing your painting and not have them come back home until the paint is dry. You can have the painting company do the job while you are away. This is something you could do over a weekend.

Let Them Help Pick Colors

It can be fun for your children if you let them at least help pick some of the colors for the home, or at least the colors that will go in their own bedrooms or playrooms. Obviously, you want to pick ones that will help with calming as well (like shades of blue).

You could steer them toward colors that match their bedding or curtains. You could also convince them to go with one of their favorite colors or find a color that matches their favorite toy.

Teach Them About Cleanliness

Lastly, teach your children about cleanliness and that it is important to keep their walls clean and looking nice. Let them draw in notebooks and art books and not on the walls. Don’t even get them bathtub crayons because that may make them think it’s OK to write on any wall, anywhere.

You may also want to invest in a few magic eraser type cleaning sponges. They can often work miracles on walls of any color.