Before you start painting...

When decorating it is important to remember to protect anything that you do not want to get covered in paint or dust. The best way to do this is to move all large items into the centre of the room and then cover with a clear plastic dust sheet. This is so anyone coming into the room will be able to see what is under the sheet and will help to avoid the risk of putting things on your precious items.

Then carefully remove all pictures, ornaments and any light shades in the room. If these light shades have special fixings then tape them to the back of the item to avoid losing them.

Now everything has been moved to the middle of the room we can use clean dust sheets around the edge of the room. This makes the floor non-slippery when using steps and also catches dust and falling paint. This is the main area you will be working in and will give easy access to the walls you are decorating.

The next task is to cover the fireplace.

Loosen any light switches or electrical sockets and protect them using masking tape. This prevents paint from falling on to them. If you feel uncomfortable loosening the sockets and switches then just use the masking tape.

We can protect the carpet by using two inch masking tape around the edges. Starting from the corner pull about a metre of tape from the roll and apply the tape to the carpet with around ten millimetres overlapping on to the skirting.

Then using a scraper push the overlapped tape down between the carpet and the skirting. Doing this will allow full access to the skirting and avoid any unpainted lines at the bottom.