Protective fabric or newspaper?
When painting a room, some people get old fashioned by using old newspapers to cover the floor. It’s the cheap man’s way when it comes to painting around the house. Besides being a cheap solution, let’s take a look at it from a practical perspective and see if it’s actually the best way to compare it to using a plastic drop cloth.
The benefits of using newspaper to cover the floor are easy to count. The newspaper is cheap and eventually you get it anyway if you subscribe to your hometown daily. You can «borrow» some from friends and neighbors without having to pay for it as well. Newsprint also absorbs liquids to some degree. A sheet of newspaper covers a certain amount of soil and you only need to add additional layers on top of each other to achieve maximum protection.
The disadvantages of using newspapers are also easy to identify. Using newspapers when painting a room can lead to stains on the carpet, for example. No matter how many layers of newspaper you possibly put on top of each other, if you spill a can of paint, there will most definitely be a leak somewhere. The newspaper is dirty – just take a few sheets of newspaper and watch your fingers. In most cases, your fingers will show a black or gray color from the newspaper. Now imagine covering an entire room with newspaper as you paint, then stepping on it several times. Then you leave the room where nothing protects your carpet. You can be sure to leave some footprints on your good mat. And while it can easily be removed from your hands, it’s difficult to remove from your mat.
Dropcloth, however, is a notch more expensive than newspaper. To cover a normal master bedroom with a drop cloth, you may need to pay between $10 and $30 for enough drop cloth. The amount you pay depends on the thickness you choose. However, the drop cloth is clean and does not cover your hands with printer paint or the like. It comes in large sheets and saves a lot of time when it comes to covering an entire room. It’s also best used when you need to cover furniture that can’t be moved out of the room you’re painting.
Conclusion: Although newspaper is the cheapest option for preparing a room for painting, it is the least optimal solution. The drop cloth is faster to deploy and provides better, cleaner protection for your carpet and furniture.
