Repainting your bathroom gives you the chance to update its look and cover any stains on the wall from moisture damage or cosmetics. When painting a bathroom, however, you need to take more care compared to painting other rooms in your home. The walls and ceiling in a bathroom are exposed to moisture that lingers in the air after you take a bath or shower, and too much moisture can cause paint to bubble and peel. Read on to learn how professional painters make sure the paint job can stand up to the humid air inside a bathroom. 

Inspect and Prepare the Drywall for Painting

Surface preparation is important whenever you're painting any room in the home, but it's especially important when you're painting a humid area like a bathroom. Drywall starts to break down when it's exposed to too much humidity, and mold can also start growing on moist drywall.

Professional painters will scrape away all of the existing paint in the bathroom in order to examine the drywall underneath. Any mold growing on the drywall will need to be removed before it's painted. If it's not removed, mold will continue to grow beneath the paint until it breaks out onto the surface of the wall again. In addition to removing mold, any drywall that's badly deteriorated because of moisture exposure will need to be replaced.

Once any mold has been removed and damaged drywall has been patched, the painters will lightly sand down the bare walls and ceiling in order to roughen the surface. A rough surface is easier for the primer to bind to, which improves the durability of the finished paint job.

Apply Moisture-Resistant Primer to the Walls and Ceiling

Primer helps paint bond to the drywall beneath it, and applying primer to the walls and ceiling will make the paint last longer. Professional painters use moisture-resistant primer for high-humidity areas in your home like bathrooms. Moisture-resistant primer is less porous than a traditional primer, which helps protect the drywall underneath it from being damaged by high humidity. It also contains antimicrobial chemicals that kill mold spores before they have a chance to start growing on the surface.

Paint the Bathroom Using Paint With a High-Gloss Finish

For bathrooms, professional painters like to use paints with a glossy finish. Paint with a glossy finish reflects light, giving it a shiny appearance. It's able to reflect light because its surface turns hard and solid as it cures, and this also gives it better resistance to moisture than other paint finishes. A high-gloss finish is less porous than matte or flat finishes, so it does a better job of keeping moisture away from the wall.

Using a combination of moisture-resistant primer and glossy paint will give you the most durable paint job for your bathroom, which is why professional painters prefer to use it. It stops water vapor from getting beneath the paint and causing it to bubble or peel, and it also protects the drywall from being damaged by moisture. If you're planning to repaint your bathroom, call a painting company in your area and have the job done by professional painters who know the right products to use — the final result will be able to stand up to the humid environment.

Contact a local painting company to learn more.