If you’re looking for effective ways on how to get rid of paint smell in house, then this guide is exactly what you’ve been looking for. Many people really enjoy being able to paint their rooms. Giving a room a fresh coat of paint can breathe a little bit of fresh life into a stale, outdated room. Whether you have just moved into a brand-new house and you are customizing it to your desires or you are simply redecorating a particular room, there are numerous reasons why you might decide to paint your room.
Once you have chosen the perfect color paint for your room, you can get to painting. After the painting has been completed, you might leave the room to go clean yourself up and change into some fresh clothes. Even after a few hours, you might still smell that fresh paint scent in your room. Most people generally do not enjoy this smell. Thankfully, there are many ways that you can get rid of this odor in a quick and efficient manner. In fact, there are many reasons why you should get rid of a paint smell as soon as you can.
What Causes the Paint Smell?
Even if you go out of your way to search for low-VOC and low-odor paints, there’s a good chance that your new room will still smell of paint. After all, the majority of paints use an oil-based solution. The smell of the paint itself comes from the solvent in these oil-based paints. When the paint begins to dry, the solvent inside the paint will evaporate, lingering in the air as fumes. It’s generally not a good idea to breathe in these fumes. From headaches to dizziness, breathing in paint fumes can cause a myriad of problems, making it unwise to breathe it in for extended periods of time. If your room is plagued with the scent of paint, there are several things that you can do to remove that smell.
How To Remove Paint Odor Inside The House
Increase Ventilation
Since the cause of the paint smell is the fumes released by evaporating solvent, one of the best things you can do to remove the scent is to increase the ventilation in the room. The easiest way to get this done is to simply open up the windows in the room and let some fresh air in. Not only does this bring in fresh, unaffected air but it also lets the fumes out of the room, quickly reducing the strength of the paint smell.
If you have adjustable vents in the room, you can also open those up a little bit more to increase the air circulation. By increasing the air circulation in the room, you can further increase the amount of fresh, clean air that is being let into the room. When more clean air is being let into the room, the fumes will eventually begin to fade, leaving you with a beautifully painted room that doesn’t smell of paint. If you open the vents more in addition to opening the windows, your room will clear itself of paint fumes even more quickly.
If you really want to get that paint smell out of your room quickly, you can also add an electric fan to the mix. Fans work by having the blades spin around and move the air. As the blades of the fan move the air around, it will disperse the fumes, reducing the strength of their scent. When you choose to leave the fan on for a few hours, you can rest assured knowing that you can come back to a room that smells fresher than ever. When combined with opening windows and vents, this process will go by even more quickly. In addition to this, you will also bring in the scent of fresh air, which is always pleasant after smelling paint fumes for a while.
Bringing in Liquids
If you would rather not open the windows or the vents, there are many more options that you can try out. Some of the more effective options are to place some specific liquids in a bowl to absorb the fumes from the paint. Vinegar is known to work extremely well at being an odor neutralizer. Deciding to place some bowls of vinegar in the corners of the room can do wonders to absorb and eliminate the smell of paint from your room. Since vinegar is such a good odor neutralizer, the smell of paint will be gone in a quick and timely manner.
Another type of liquid that you can use is water combined with sliced lemons. The water itself will absorb some of the paint fumes and the lemons will provide a clean, citric scent to the room as well. These two things combined will work to dissipate the smell of paint from the room. You should place the bowls of lemon slices and water in the room while you are painting and leave them there overnight for the best results. If you want to make this concoction extra effective, adding salt to the water will make it even more absorbent.
If you don’t have any lemons, you could also consider putting a candle in a bowl of water. Similar to lemon slices in the bowls of water, the water will work to absorb the smell of the paint while the candle burns with a fragrance of your choice. In fact, this is arguably a better option to choose as you can choose the scent of the candle. In fact, the candle will burn away some of the solvent particles in the air, reducing the paint fumes in the air as well. Deciding to put the candle in the bowl of water will decrease the chances that it will be knocked over, though you should check on it every so often to make sure that there isn’t a problem.
Bringing in Solids
In addition to certain liquids, there are a few other materials that can be used to absorb the smell of paint in a room. For example, charcoal is a well-known way to absorb smells. Once you have collected some crushed charcoal, you will want to put it in buckets around the room, especially close to areas where paint was just applied. If you want to be on top of the game, you might even want to consider putting the buckets of charcoal on the ground before you begin painting so that the paint fumes can be absorbed as soon as possible. Charcoal is so efficient at what it does that there’s a good chance that in an hour or two, there will be a drastic decrease in paint smell.
Of course, crushed charcoal might not be too easy to obtain. If you cannot get your hands on some crushed charcoal, there are a few other options that you can consider. Baking soda is a wonderful solution that is quite easy to come by. Baking soda is also well known for being able to absorb smells, making it a perfect material to use to remove the smell of paint from a room. You can place the baking soda in bowls around the room or, if you have a carpet, you could open several boxes and dump them on the floor. If you choose to put the baking soda on your carpet, you should let it sit for a few hours after the painting has been completed before vacuuming it up.
If baking soda isn’t the best option for you, then another route you can go down is coffee grounds. Many places use coffee grounds as a way to absorb smells, although it is not as effective as baking soda or charcoal. Coffee grounds are better used for more minor cases of a lingering paint smell. However, one of the benefits to using coffee grounds is that the room will have a pleasant smell of coffee instead of paint. These are just a few of the ways that you can remove the smell of paint from your house.
Protecting Yourself
While a lot of people don’t think of paint fumes as being particularly dangerous, prolonged exposure to these fumes isn’t good for your health. As with any fumes, lasting exposure can cause some respiratory issues and nobody particularly wants that to happen. When you are painting a room, you should consider taking some breaks to get some fresh air every now and then. Not only will this feel good but it will improve your health. If you are going to be painting for a long time, you might want to consider getting a ventilated face mask so that you can protect your airways while you work.
Paint fumes can also lead to some nasty effects when you breathe them in too much. For instance, some of the most common side effects that you might get include some dizziness or a headache. Some people who are more sensitive to paint fumes might experience more troublesome symptoms ranging from discomfort in the throat and the chest to blurred vision, migraines, and nausea. Nobody enjoys this, making it all the more important to get those paint fumes out of your house as best you can.
Whether you are giving a single room a new makeover or you are repainting the entire house, painting can be both a tiring and exciting task. Making sure that you protect yourself and your airway is important but so is making sure that there is no residual paint fumes. By using these methods, you can rest assured knowing that your house will be free of paint fumes before you know it.