An easy way to clean your paint brushes and rollers
Wether you’re re-painting the living room, working on an art project or planning completely renovating the whole house; you will have to use paint brushes and rollers. And it can be hard to clean those after using them. Especially if you want to make sure you can use them again. Find out how to clean your rollers and brushes so you can use them again for your next project!
1. Preparation
When you’re starting a project, you are probably not thinking about the cleaning of your paint brushes and rollers yet. But according to Mike Mundwiller, an end-user product experience manager at Benjamin Moore, cleaning already starts before you even begin. There are some things you can do beforehand to make your supplies last. Het told Real Simple: “Before your first application with a new roller, wrap the entire roller with blue painter’s tape, then pull it off. This will ‘defuzz’ your roller prior to painting, ensuring you don’t have any fibers deposited into your paint or onto your walls once you get going.”
2. Break
If you’re working on something big, you probably won’t finish in one day. And sometimes you just need a break from painting! But don’t just leave your brush laying around. Rick Watson, the director of product information and technical services at Sherwin-Williams, told Real Simple: “If I’m using a roller tray, I will get a standard garbage bag and put everything in that—tray, roller handle with roller and brushes. Be sure to close it tightly to keep the air out.” If you’re taking a very short break, then wrap your brushes and rollers in plastic wrap. Another tip: “If you are ending for the day and you want to pick it back up in the morning, wrap your tools and store them in a refrigerator. Just make sure that prior to starting the next day, you let the tools warm up to room temperature before painting with them,” Mundwiller said.
3. Finished
When you’re finished with your project, all that is left to do is clean those brushes and rollers. And you have to do it as soon as possible. There are some easy steps that you can follow:
- Cleaning your brushes: use water and dish soap to clean your brushes. Just rinse and soap the brush, also between the bristles. If there are dried bits of paint on your brushes you can use a paint brush scraper to get them off. Then let the brushes dry completely before you use them again.
- Cleaning your rollers: scrape excessive paint off of the roller before you start rinsing them with water. Just use a putty knife to get the paint off and put it back into the paint can (or the garbage). Then rinse the roller. If you need to, you can add a little bit of dish soap but you have to make sure you rinse all of it out. Then let it air-dry standing upright so it doesn’t get flat on one side.
With these tips, painting (and cleaning up afterwards) will be so much easier!
Read more: Find out: this is how you can clean white walls
Source: Real Simple | Image: Unsplash, David Pisnoy