Here’s How We Paint a Room or an Entire House (and Avoid a Costly Paint Color Illusion)

When it comes to interior repaints, there’s more than one way to get the job done.

At Expressions Painting, we’ve developed a process that ensures high-quality finishes, minimal disruption, and true-to-color results.

I’m Remi Boudreau, a licensed painter and color consultant. In this post, I’ll walk you through the 5 steps we follow on almost every project, explain a common—and costly—color illusion, and show why our method helps homeowners fully leverage the transformative power of color in their space.

Step 1: Repairs

Before any paint touches the walls, we start with repairs. This includes drywall patching, filling nail holes, and caulking. While it may seem obvious to start here, by doing repairs first, we also contain the mess before laying down drop sheets, making the process cleaner and more efficient.

Step 2: Ceilings

Next, we tackle the ceilings. Many DIY painters make the mistake of trying to cut in perfectly when painting a ceiling (or worse, starting with the walls leaving the ceilings for last). But by overlapping slightly onto the walls, this approach saves time and helps ensures a cleaner lines in the end by having the corner filled evenly before eventually cutting in the straight lines with the wall color.

Step 3: Baseboards and Frames

After ceilings, we focus on baseboards and window/door frames. Again, overlapping slightly onto the walls saves time and also fills in the corner nice and even making for a smoother transition and minimizes mistakes when we paint the walls.

Step 4: Walls

Walls are where a surprising problem often arises: the color illusion.

Even if you’ve chosen a neutral color like gray or beige, leftover hues from your old paint can trick your eye. For instance, a wall with a lot of blue can make the new neutral gray appear to have an orangy or goldish undertone to it. 

Our solution: we roll out the first coat across the entire wall before cutting in. This method removes traces of the old color, giving homeowners a truer representation of the final color and avoiding those mid-project panic calls about “the color looking wrong.”

Step 5: Doors

Finally, we paint doors. Doing this last minimizes disruption, especially in homes that are still occupied during the repaint. By this stage, the rest of the room has been completely painted which allows our clients to move the furniture and decorations back in place... faster.

Our approach is all about maximizing the benefits and reducing the inconvenience... this is how we help our clients leverage the transformative power of color.

Want to learn more, or see some of these color illusions for yourself?

Be sure to watch the video below.