How to make a house look nice and new? The definite answer to this question is no doubt a new paint job. A fresh coat of paint can do wonders to a home and the paint smell although may be nauseating to some, does signify a nice new smelling house.
The question for me new home is not whether or not to have a new paint job, but more whether we should hire professionals to do it or to do it ourselves (with some help from wonderful family and friends of course). Got an initial quote of about $1000 to paint my house in ONE single colour. Pretty steep if you ask me.
So we decided to DIY (do-it-yourself) paint the house. So we started to research a bit on what colours to use, what brand of paint to use, who to ask (con) to help us paint and the other usual stuff.
So last Saturday we set of to buy paint. Peiwen’s (my wife) brother was kind enough to drive in from JB (Johor Bahru) to help us out. We drove over to Ubi Industrial area to get the paint. Getting paint and hardware related stuff is relatively cheaper around here, cause these shops specializes in supplying goods to contractors and all.
Went to a shop that specializes in selling Nippon and ICI paint. We opted for the Nippon Super Vinilex 5000 paint series, the lowest in the food chain among the wide range of paint series that Nippon sells. The sales guy at the shop was one really friendly and helpful chap. He advised us on what colours to take, how many litres of paint is needed and so on. Since we’ve made some research before hand based on Nippon’s recommendation, we had an in mind how many litres of paint to get. In the end based on the sales guy, we ended up buying less paint which is good.
The price of the paint was also cheaper than the mainstream DIY shops such as HomeFix and SelfFix. In the end I forked up about$350 for
- 3 x 5 litre Lily White paint for walls
- 2 x 5 litre Creamy White paint for the ceilings
- 2 x 1 litre Light Cocoa for living room feature wall
- 1 x 20 litre Paint Sealer (Base paint)
- 2 x Scraper
- 2 x Paint Roller
- 2 x Paint Brush
- 2 x Paint Tray
- 1 x 4 Step Ladder
- 1 x Sand Paper 100 Git
- 1 x Wall Putty
- Misc
So about $350 for the tools necessary to DIY Paint. Quite a huge saving considering that to get people to paint with the 3 colours, it would probably cost me about $1200. So some huge savings there.
Stay tuned for the next posting of prepping and actually painting..