Paint flaking is caused by moisture that collects behind the painted surface. Moisture enters the wood siding from the unpainted side. When the sun heats up the surface, the moisture is forced to try and evaporate, when it can, it breaks through the paint.
When staining, one must be aware of lap marks. These are the dark overlap marks that appear on the surface when you are finished. To avoid this problem, one should paint in a shaded area to avoid sunlight which causes the paint to dry to fast. It is important to keep a wet edge and finish any area that you start An easy trick is to only paint a few vertical or horizontal boards at a time and going from start to finish before commencing on any other areas.
Ceilings can be tricky as they tend to leave streaks when not done properly. When you are painting a ceiling in a room, try and keep the natural light source at your back and work away from it. If there are more than one sources of natural light, choose the one that offers the most sunlight. If the paint is drying too quickly, try opening the doors to cool off the room. Of course this only works when the temperature is cooler outside than inside.
It's a little known fact that thicker roller sleeves do not apply more paint than thinner ones. A thicker roller only makes the peaks and valleys of the surface more pronounced. The peak may have more paint and appear covered while the valley is thin and shows the colour below it. We recommend 10mm rollers for walls and 15mm for ceilings. The results are smoother and more consistent. You also can benefit from better covering power.
When having to do touch ups on a previously painted surface (no matter how much time has expired), it is important to use the same tool to do the touch up that was used to paint the wall originally. If, for example, you use a brush to touch up a wall that has been rolled, the touch up will be quite apparent.
When you need to determine whether a previously painted surface is either alkyd or latex, use a rag or a cloth which has been wet with xylol (or nail polish remover). The results between both will vary dramatically. Latex paints are very poor at resisting solvents and will have their surfaces wear away after 10+ seconds of circular rubbing. The alkyd will not be affected and will become shinier after several wipes.
When choosing colours, paint chips are essential in determining the colours that will be used. Although, more often than not, people feel that the colour on the chip is not the same as the colour on the wall. This is due to paint manufacturers producing their paint chips in very low sheen finishes. If using an eggshell or semigloss as a finish, you can wet the paint chip to adjust the colour and better predict it's eventual outcome on the walls.
There is a very common misconception that a primer should be used when going from a dark colour to a light colour. The fact is that paint (white based and medium based) have much more body and hiding power than primers and should be used for all the coats.