Repainting our kitchen

Repainting our kitchen

Top Tips for Cleaning Paint Brushes and Rollers

Leonard Davis

Big decorating jobs are best tackled by a professional residential painting contractor, but if you enjoy taking on smaller DIY tasks and touch-ups around your home, you'll need to know how to look after your equipment.  To get the best results from your painting jobs you must clean and store your paint brushes and rollers correctly.  Read on to find out how.

What you'll need

  • old newspaper or cloth
  • washing-up liquid and warm water
  • white spirit
  • kitchen towel
  • plastic bag

How to do it

  1. The first thing to do is to get rid of any excess paint that is still loaded onto the brush or roller.  You can do this by squeezing paint brush bristles against the lip of your paint tin or tray.  Now take some old newspaper or cloth and wipe your paint brushes and rollers to remove as much paint as possible.  
  2. If you're planning on using your brushes and rollers the next day, you can wrap the roller head or brush bristles in cling film.  This stops the paint from drying out and saves you having to clean the tools twice.  
  3. To clean non-oil-based or water-based paint, fill a clean paint tray with a solution of warm water and washing-up liquid.  Carefully swish the brush or roller around in the water to remove the paint.  You'll need to change the solution for a fresh batch quite frequently, until all the paint has been removed.  
  4. When the paint has all gone, rinse the brushes and roller under the tap to get rid of any soap. 
  5. To clean away oil-based paint, fill a large container with white spirit.  Swirl the brushes and roller around in the white spirit, refreshing the solution as necessary until all the paint is gone.
  6. Now rinse the brushes and roller under the tap until the water runs away clear.  
  7. Use a kitchen towel to dry the brushes and rollers.  
  8. Store your brushes and rollers somewhere dry and safe from nibbling vermin.  Store your brushes vertically so that the bristles point upwards.  This prevents the bristles from becoming damaged or bent out of shape.  When the roller is dry, store it in a plastic bag to keep it dust-free.

In conclusion

Follow the tips given above to make sure that your paint brushes and rollers emerge from storage clean and ready to go next time you decide to carry out a DIY home painting job. For more painting tips, talk to a company like Dyson Painters.


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About Me
Repainting our kitchen

When we moved into our house the kitchen was a bit yucky. The wall and ceiling around the oven had turned yellow-brown from years of cooking smells, and there was splattered oil all over the walls. It made the whole room feeling uninviting. As soon as we moved in I knew what I had to do: we scrubbed down the walls and repainted the whole room with new white paint. It was such a simple change with a dramatic impact. This blog is all about changing the mood of a room with a new coat of paint and how you can achieve the same effect.