Landlord Tools of the Trade – Painting Tools

Landlord Tools

Every business has the tools of the trade, whether it’s wrenches for a mechanic, spreadsheet for analysts or even color swatches for designers. Knowing what tools to have can make those jobs easier, faster and hopefully more profitable.

The same can be said for the landlord business. So to provide some ideas of items you may want to have, I’m going to create a few articles with some of the items and tools I use to make my work easier and in turn, hopefully yours too.

Speed Up Your Painting

Hopefully you’ve seen my previous article/video about choosing paint colors (A Quick And Easy Landlord Renovating Tip), if not maybe go take a quick look at it after you’re done here. It gives you some ideas about saving time later and it revolves around painting which is where today’s tools come to play.

Now as much as I would like you to hire someone to come in and do the painting for you, it doesn’t always work that way. Hiring someone may not fit in your budget, you may have plenty of spare time or you may even find it relaxing. So if you’re doing it, make sure you have the right tools to get the job done.

I actually have several of the tools I take with me whenever I have to paint a property in the image at the top of the page. The obvious ones are the huge bucket of paint, the small ladder and the drop clothes. The less obvious ones are the scraper on the floor, the roll of sandpaper (the sanding block actually isn’t in the picture, but you’ll want one of those too) and my handy rolling stick.

Obvious Painting Tools

We buy the large buckets of paint as we use the same color in all of our properties and by purchasing in larger containers we save money. The small ladder allows us to reach the corners and top edges when painting. In my case I’m over 6′ tall, so I don’t need a very larger ladder, you might want to consider a slightly larger one if you need it. My wife actually has one with a shelf to set the paint on and it’s her favorite ladder for painting.

Drop clothes, these should be mandatory! You can purchase them from most paint supply stores, but we also use old sheets and for those paying attention the blue sheets are actually old sheets from the surgery ward in hospitals. No, they weren’t used, but they were thrown out and a friend who worked at the hospital donated them to us. They are AWESOME!

Having drop clothes can save you a ton of clean up after the fact and although it takes a bit more prep time to lay them out, you will be thankful the first time a big glob of paint falls on them.

Less Obvious Tools

The less obvious tools are the scraper for cleaning up edges, removing silicon or for outside wooden frames with pealing paint. The sand paper may actually be one of the most important pieces.

I could probably turn this into a five thousand word article about painting, but to keep your attention, I’ll gloss over a few things, and just do some Coles notes on them. Starting with prepping the walls. The amount of prep work you do prior to painting will really help determine how it looks.

If you spend extra time mudding and sanding any imperfections, patching any plaster that is damaged and scraping any old paint off it will make the finished product so much better. That sandpaper you brought with you is worth it’s weight in gold to accomplishing that goal.

On top of that, doing a quick sanding between coats can also help create a smoother finish along with helping the second and/or third coat adhere better. Don’t skip this step.

That brings me to one other tool we use in concert with the sanding, the painting pole. Obviously we use this with the roller (should I have mentioned the roller as an obvious tool?), but we also have special sanding blocks that attach to the painting pole as well. This makes the process of doing a quick scuff up of the wall fast and easy.

It’s a quick sand, you don’t want to take the paint off, just scuff it a bit to smooth out any imperfections and to allow that next coat to stick more. Trust me, if you haven’t been using a pole already for rolling the walls, just having one will make a huge difference in your speed (and it makes you back feel better too).

Finally, don’t forget a couple plastic bags full of rags. This is dual purpose. The first time you paint a wall a new color you’ll need to do a couple coats. Wrapping your paint brush in a wet rag and leaving it in the fridge over night will help stop the paint from hardening allowing you to come back the next day and apply the second coat.. You’ll also be able to use the rags to touch up any booboos.

The plastic bags (sorry environmentalists) work great with the roller and the rolling tray. If you need to come back later or the next day for coat two, make sure the tray is full of paint, the roller is soaked and then then cover the tray with two bags, one over the thick end first, then across the other end. It keeps the air away from it and allows you again to set it aside until the next day without worrying about the paint hardening or destroying the roller.

Other Painting Tips

This one is a little more advanced and may not work for you, but we don’t use painting tape. We cut in by hand along the ceilings, baseboards (when we don’t remove them first) and door frames. It takes a steady hand and it doesn’t hurt that my wife is an artist as well so she can follow the lines. I’ve just had lots of practice and I stock extra rags in case I mess up…

If this is something you’re going to try, make sure you have a two or three inch wide wedge style paint brush as the wedge shape helps keep that line and we find it’s a bit easier on the hands. If you’re not familiar with this, it’s just having the tip of the brush angle down instead of squared off when you are looking at the brush when it’s flat on the floor. See the image for a visual explanation.

If you use drywall mud to patch holes, go over the mud after you patch with a wet rag. It will remove the excess and just leave the filled in hole making the wall look smoother instead of patchy.

You can use stir sticks to stir paint that has been sitting for a while or you can purchase attachments for your drill that will do a much better job of stirring paint. If you do a lot of painting, this attachment can be very handy.

Remove all switch plates and electrical covers and bring a couple boxes to put them in so they don’t get lost. If they are grimy and dirty we often put them in the sink with a little dish soap or cleaner to soak. then we remove them and wipe them down with some of our plentiful rags later and they come out much cleaner. If they aren’t coming out clean, consider purchasing new ones or the work you did making the walls all pretty is for nothing.

Did I miss any handy tips or tools to make your next painting project easier? Do you have some you can share with me? Either way I’d love to hear your thoughts about these tips and whether you would like access to more of the tools I use and how to take advantage of them to their fullest. So leave me a comment below.