Are you planning to change the color of your living room? I will walk you through simple steps of preparing your walls before you paint them. After reading this article you should be able to do all the preparation without making a mess.

1. If you are painting a room, like a bathroom, its a good idea to lightly wash the walls down to clean them. Also, if the room you're painting is dusty or dirty - clean them. Paint does not stick well to dust and dirt. Its also a good idea to vacuum the carpets.

2. If you're not a pro with a brush, use blue painters tape to mask around anything that should not be painted. To make the job faster you can purchase hand maskers that put the painters take right onto sheets of paper or plastic thus letting you mask larger areas. Paper mask any wood flooring and then put drop clothes down over the carpeted areas.

3. Next step is to fill in any nail holes in the walls with spackle. Put some spackle on the tip of your finger and mush it into the hole. You may want to dab some primer on these spots using feathery strokes all around the hole.

4. Caulk any areas that need to be caulked. Fill in areas like trim around windows and doors, baseboards and cracks. Only use a drip less caulking gun because it is so much easier to use Remember, caulking works for small cracks only. Bigger cracks must be secured, taped and textured over.

5. Before you start rolling the walls with paint, you should do your "cut ins." Cut ins is areas like painting up to base boards, window trim, corners and around electrical outlets. Use a small sash brush for this work. When using a brush you will want to fill a paint bucket with only two inches of paint.

6. When getting ready to roll the walls, its a good idea to pour your paint into another container like a paint tray. As a pro, we find it easier to use 5 gallon buckets with "bucket screens" when we use rollers. But trays work well too.

7. The first step to rolling your walls is to load the roller with paint. Roll it against the paint tray or roller screen to remove excess paint. This lets the paint soak into the roller cover. Once you have let the roller sit for a minute, re-apply the paint to the roller cover and remove the excess paint again - now the roller is loaded.

8. The last part of the project is brush painting your floor boards and window and door trim. When painting these areas, use long brush strokes. You can also use a little paint conditioner to.