Paint Roller Technique and Recomendations

Painting and Decorating Concourse

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We have our roller frame, cover and pole picked out, and have our set up worked out, now we need to get down to the nitty gritty of actually painting our room.

Paint from the top down

The first thing to paint is the ceiling. Ceilings should always be painted in flat unless it is a bathroom or kitchen. Flat painted ceilings are more uniform looking and are easier to paint. Cut in around all the light fixtures first, then proceed to roll out

the ceiling. Roll the ceiling in the direction of the width of the ceiling, splitting the width into two sections. Roll about 6' of one half of the ceiling, move to the other side and roll the other half , work your way from one end of the room to the other alternating halves,and doing about 6' swaths at a time. Don't stop in the middle of a ceiling for a break etc.. or your ceiling will have a blotchy lapped appearance.

Walls (Cut and Roll)

Cut In

Cut in the wall / ceiling joint with your brush, bringing the brushed band down about 4" from the ceiling. Cut in one wall at a time from one end to the other end. Cut in around fixtures and objects on the wall with a band of about 4" of paint.

Roll

Starting at a corner, dip your roller into the paint, roll off excess on the grid and bring the roller directly to the wall. Roll the paint on in a "W" pattern to a 4' x 4' section, then re-roll over it to fill in the voids and spread the paint, then do then lay off the paint with a tight, lightly rolled "W" pattern from top to the bottom of the wall. Roll as closely to the ceiling as you can. TIP: Roll sideways up at the top of the wall which will allow you to get closer to the ceiling. Roll as close as you can to any fixtures on the wall too, this will minimize and "banding" that can occur particularly with deeper colors and sheen paints. Note: If you get some banding (where the brushed in paint looks different than the rolled on paint) or highs and lows in your satin (or semi gloss) sheen paint, you will need to re-coat. Try to minimize your brushing by rolling as close as you can to the object or ceiling.

Double Rolling

To get better coverage and sheen uniformity a technique know as double rolling is often employed. Double rolling will often allow you to get one coat hiding and sheen uniformity (with satin and semi gloss) without having to resort to a second coat.

Double rolling is done by rolling on your 4' x 4' sections rather heavily with paint, allowing it to set up a little bit and then back rolling to smooth and lay off the paint after a short period of time. Timing is everything with double rolling. If you wait too long you will not be able to smooth the paint out and will have a blotchy, heavily roller textured, messy wall, so err on the side of back rolling too soon rather that too late. The key on timing is to back roll just as the paint starts to set up - but is still pliable and will smooth out. Seasoned painters do this all the time with get great time saving results. I don't really recommend this for the DIY'ers unless you have painting experience, are vigilant and are at least willing to live with a bad result if it goes wrong.

Deep tone paints are harder to obtain a uniform appearance with, as are sheen paints. Flat paints in white, off white or a pastel color are the easiest to achieve a good uniform appearance.

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Paint Roller Technique and Recomendations part 2

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