Need Painting Ideas? Below are 5 great ideas for doing it yourself and saving a lot of money when it comes to improving your new home and for adding resale value.

1. Faux Painting – good wallpaper can be expensive. And so is the cost of someone doing it for you. On the other hand faux painting if you are doing it yourself can save you a lot of money. So this can be a great low cost way to decorate.

The secret is to find good faux designs and colors. Then after choosing a specific design, practice it on something before doing any walls. If you get yourself some faux brochures there are some basic finishes that look really nice and are easy to master.

2. Painting Stripes – this is great for bathrooms and even bedrooms. By choosing the right colors and taking your time, your stripes can turn out looking really nice. The secret is to measure out your strips, use a plum level or regular level and painters tape that is bleed-resistant.

I painted a bathroom in stripes for a customer. Because of the colors they chose and us taking our time to do the job right, it turned out very nice. We saw another job done by someone that was so bad they did not pay him but rather told him to leave and not come back!

3. Painting Stars – have you ever thought about having an accurate copy of the nighttime sky on your bedroom ceiling or in a game room? Most people usually go out and buy those plastic stick-on stars, which are O.K. if you are into plastic stick-on stars.

Another way to go about getting stars on your ceiling is to check out this inexpensive course from AmazingStarMurals.com. By getting this course you can easily add a night sky mural to any ceiling of your choice. Or you can always hire someone who specializes in this type of artwork.

Your ceiling will look like any other ceiling during the daytime. At night when the lights go out, it looks like the night sky. This is due to a special set of paints. You can make an accurate copy of the night sky. Even the Milky Way will look real. Another great low cost way to paint your home or business and to add value.

4. Texture Painting – if you have old walls that are rough from being wallpapered in the past or just beat up from age, you can give them a whole new look super fast using texture paint.

When my wife and I were first together we textured our dinning room walls. We had old plaster and we bought a gallon of ready-mixed texture paint from Sherwin Williams in Spanish white.

We really did not know what we were doing. I used crumpled newspaper to put it on the walls and it actually did not look too bad. It a nice textured look.

5. Painting Woodwork with Oil-Base Enamels – do you have an older home with the older style woodwork? By giving your doors, windows and trim a custom pant job using oil-base enamel paint can really enhance the beauty. There is nothing like a creamy smooth enamel finish done on woodwork this way. Most latex paints are inferior and are not worthy of fine woodwork.

A good example of woodwork restoration is an older home we did quite a bit of work in. It was in the student ghetto area that a guy owned and paid off early. He rented the upstairs out and lived in the downstairs. He had the money to do quite a bit of home improvement.

His house was one of these older homes and he had really nice woodwork. Nice solid doors, tall baseboards and wide trim. It needed to be restored though. It was all old, dark, stained woodwork and would have looked really good with a nice enamel finish in a "coffee with cream" type of color.

If you do the job yourself it would only cost you the enamel paint, the primer and some sandpaper plus a nice quality paintbrush. This low cost project will definitely take some time to do but the end result is beauty and a definite increase in your property value.

Lee Cusano has owned his own painting business since 1991. Since 2004 he has helped others to start their own business and make good money doing it right from the start with his several painting manuals. Please visit http://www.betterpaintingtips.com/paintingideas.html for some free valuable painting techniques and painting ideas.