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Why am I qualified to give advice about painting? I’m not really. If you know professional painters, and they have tips and tricks, they’re probably better. However, if you’re eying up a room in your house for a fresh coat of pain for the first time, or your last painting experience went very poorly, then maybe I have something to offer. The wife and I received a lot of compliments on our last house when we were selling it, and we painted all but one of the rooms ourselves (the last one we didn’t have to paint). This isn’t bragging, because it’s not like we’re better then average painters, we’ve just done enough of it, that we’ve picked up a fair few tips and tricks, and I thought it might benefit someone out there if I share them.

Stuff You’ll Want

So, you want to paint your room. What do you actually need to do it?

Two People

This isn’t an absolute requirement, but if you can rope someone else in to help you out, the whole process goes much faster. From start to finish, you can do a large sized room in an evening (assuming you don’t have to prime.) Recently, Kristin & I painted our daughter’s room on a Saturday. It was completely together in the morning, and she was sleeping in the room again that evening, with a fresh coat of paint, new light switches, outlets and covers, the furniture back where it was originally, and a new shelf was on the wall.

Paint Brush(es)

Some of this stuff is pretty obvious, huh? I don’t personally see any advantage to buying the most expensive brush out there, but be aware you may start finding bristles in your paint if you go bargain basement. Home Depot labels everything “Good”, “Better”, and “Best”. I usually go with “Better”. If you’re just going to buy one brush, my preference would be for a 2 1/2 inch brush with an angled head, because it helps get in the corners.

Rollers

If you have large interrupted segments of wall to paint, or you have to prime a whole room before you can but color on, or if you have to paint a ceiling, you may track me down to personally thank me for this one: buy a paint stick. They’re a big cylinder, like those water guns people use in swimming pools, but with a roller on the end. Here’s a link. Here’s a picture:

For the most part, using rollers is a pain in the ass, because they don’t hold all that much paint, and you have to keep going back to the tray to refill them. The paint stick pretty much eliminates that, allowing you to paint large swatches of wall in a single pass. Additionally, because it’s feeding the paint from the inside of the roller, my perception is that it cuts down significantly on splatter. The only thing you need to be aware of is that the first full tube you use will go almost entirely to loading up the roller, so don’t get frustrated, after that it’s smooth sailing. Also, it’s kind of a pain to clean.

Now, if you’re painting an area too small to warrant breaking out the” big gun” paint stick, you’ll have to go with a traditional roller and tray. I like the orange plastic trays because the paint washes right off with hot water, but if you wanted to take it to the next level of lazy, you could just get disposable. I know sometimes there’s kits with a tray, big roller and little roller, but I don’t personally find those tiny rollers very useful. I prefer to pick up:

A long necked, skinny roller. This is only necessary if you have some smaller spaces that the big roller can’t easily fit. Usually, this is above doorways, and above/below windows. I also really like this for touch up, because it doesn’t hold a whole lot of paint, and the long handle helps you reach some of the high spots without dragging the step stool all around.

Paint stick, traditional roller, or skinny roller, let me give you a huge time saving piece of advice: treat the roller end as disposable. I just cut your cleanup time in half. You can thank me later. I hate cleaning those things: it takes forever, makes a giant mess, and they never work the same afterwards anyway. “But what if I have to paint over the course of multiple days, isn’t that wasteful?” Yes, and I’ll address that in my painting tips below.

Drop Cloth

Unless you’re replacing the floor or rug in the room you’re painting, it’s likely you’ll want to keep the paint off the floor. You can buy giant plastic drop cloths for pretty cheap, but don’t plan on wearing anything but socks on them because your bare feet will stick to them, and your shoes could tear them up. Additionally, the paint droplets that fall on the plastic don’t dry all that fast, so you risk spreading them off of the plastic if you inadvertently step in one. I recently purchased a nice canvas drop cloth, which worked great in the last two rooms I had to paint. It was something like 4′x15′, which is perfect for when you’re painting just the walls. Old sheets and towels work great as well.

Masking Tape

Want clean lines? You’re going to need masking tape. I usually buy the blue stuff, at least an 1″ think so it can absorb the accidental roller brush. I’ll repeat this below, because it’s worth saying twice: you want the masking tape on the wall for as short a period of time as possible. The longer it’s on there, the more it wants to become one with your wall or ceiling paint, and you’ll be pretty unhappy if you wait a day or two to take it off and some of your new paint comes with it.

Paint

This is the one area where I’ve really come to realize that it’s worth spending the extra money. Good paint goes on thick, stays on the brush, has low odor, dries faster and requires as little as one coat. Cheap paint is thin, messy, stinks, has longer dry times, and I guarantee will require at least 2 coats. For that last reason alone, I suggest finding and purchasing Benjamin Moore paints. You can locate a local dealer on their site. I’m sure there’s other high quality paints out there, but I don’t know what they are. I also know that when my in-laws were getting quotes from professional painters to paint a few rooms in their house, that all of them said they would only paint with Benjamin Moore. As far as sheen goes, the advice varies, but if you’re using good paint, I go with matte for walls, and semi-gloss for baseboards, moldings, etc.

Also worth putting in this section is a little about primer. My advice here is just use common sense. Can you paint white over dark blue and expect that it will look right in one coat? No. I think a good rule of thumb is that if the paint you want on the wall is lighter then the paint already on the wall, that you should prime it back to white. I’ve also heard that if you’re painting a wall red, that you should have your primer tinted red or grey, but I’ve never done this. I can attest, however, that dark reds are a true pain in the ass to paint with. Our kitchen took close to 4 coats to get a solid color. Part of this I blame on the red, and the other part I blame on buying cheap paint, which I no longer do. I’d also suggest priming unpainted surfaces like new wood, drywall, or a patches, because they all seem to suck up the first coat of paint you throw on them, and primer is a lot cheaper then the good paint you just bought. As far as brands go, Kilz white primer has always produced good results for me, but I’m not nearly as adamant about this as I am about the wall paint.

Procedure

Ok, you’ve got all your supplies, and you’re ready to create your masterpiece. What now? Here’s a quick list.

In the following order, this is how I think painting a room works best. Skip the steps you don’t need:

Primer. Cover everything that requires priming. Is getting every square 1/16″ necessary? Unlikely.

Paint the ceiling. 99% of the time you’re either painting it white or the wall color, if this is case, feel free to let it overlap onto the wall or molding (assuming you’re painting them as well.)

Paint the moldings. Again, if your moldings are going to be white or match the wall, you don’t have to mask those overlaps. Just paint away. If you have crown molding, however, you’re going to have to do your first masking, because you don’t want to get paint on your ceiling. My masking tips are below in the Painting Tips section.

Paint the walls. Now you’re really going to have to mask the hell out of the room. This is my least favorite part of painting. You’ll need to mask between the top of the ceiling and the wall or molding as well as the bottom of the wall and the baseboard. Try to press the tape on where the two meet, but don’t flatten the entire strip against the surface, it’s not necessary, and makes taking it off a little more difficult. For the best lines, make sure you seal the tape per the instructions below.

Painting Tips

Ok, you’ve got all your stuff and ready to go. Just a few more tips before you start:

Put Used Brushes and Rollers You’ll Need Later in the Fridge/Freezer

Guess what? When paint dries, it gets kinda hard, and no longer transfers from your nice new brush to the wall. You can prevent this, however, by just putting it in a Ziploc, sealing it as best you can, and putting it somewhere cold. How cold really depends on how long you’re going to keep it in there. If it’s just to keep the brush in good working order between coats, I just toss it in the fridge. If you’re not getting around to that second coat for a few days, the freezer is calling. The paint will eventually dry in the fridge, which is why it’s not a very good long term solution. The downside to the freezer is that you have to take the brush out and let it warm up for a while before you can use it again.

Best Use of Two People

If you managed to coerce someone into helping you paint, I’ve found the best method for keeping both people busy is as follows:

• Hopefully you have 2 rolls of masking tape. So, don’t just stand around and watch one person mask. I think it’s the part of painting most people dislike the most, so split it up: one person on the ceiling (you probably only have one step stool) and one on the baseboard.
• Great, the rooms masked, so now you can split into two simultaneous jobs: cutting in (using a brush to get about a 6 inch swatch of paint from the masking tape into the wall), and rolling. It’s best if you can roll over what’s been cut in, but this won’t be possible at the very beginning, so you may have to let the person cutting in get a slight head start or both start cutting in if you have two brushes.
• Finally, if you’re using good paint, you may not need a second coat. In this case, once it’s dry enough to recoat (about an hour with the good Aura Benjamin Moore paint) you’ll need to go around the room looking for spots where you can see the old wall color through your paint, usually in little speckles, and roll over it. Although only one person can actually do the rolling, you’ll find a lot more spots faster if you double the eyeballs hunting for them.

Roller Care

Eventually, the roller is going to be too mushed to put paint on properly. However, you can make this take a LOT longer if you don’t press the thing into the wall with all your might. You only need enough pressure to keep it rolling, the nap of the roller will take care of the rest.

The Trick to Great Lines

The least satisfying thing that can happen to you after you invest all this time and effort in painting your room is to peel off the masking tape and have awful looking lines where the ceiling or molding color meets the wall color. I’ve had a lot of luck recently using the following method to ensure you get great looking lines. The short version is that you have to seal the masking tape with the color that’s it’s going over. The long version, with pictures, starts now:

Note: This method assumes you’re masking off a light color, like a ceiling or molding, and putting on a darker wall color. I don’t think this will work as well if you’re masking a dark color and painting a light. Also, for the sake of simplicity, I’ll give these directions as though you’re masking and sealing the ceiling line. Just rinse and repeat for whatever your specific situation may be.

So, you’ve masked off the room and you’re ready to start? First, you have to get out the ceiling color and, using a brush, put a thin coat over the tape making sure you get the edge you’re sealing:

Sealing the tape with the ceiling color

After that dries (remember: THIN coat in the above step) you’ll paint right over the tape and line in your wall color.

Finally, and this is important, as soon as you’re done painting the all the edges, start removing the tape. The less time it spends on the wall the better most for not sticking to the wall, and also for letting the paint on the tape and the paint on the wall separate cleanly.

The Finished Product: Clean Lines!

Viola! Professional looking lines. Your friends will all be impressed. Now get to work, that room’s not going to paint itself!