Painting Adjoining Walls in Different Colours

[fictitiousemail]

I'm presently painting the walls in my hall .There is a dado rail right round and The dado and door surrounds and skirting is a green eggshell. Below the dado is lining paper in Matt emulsion in a pale green .Above the dado is white matt emulsion .The doors will probably be white eggshell as well.

I was toying with the idea of painting the upper part of the wall that faces you as you come in the outside door the same colour as the rest is below ...just to break things up a bit .

I did something similar in a bedroom but I seem to remember getting the join right was a bit of a nightmare . Any tips for getting the 2 joins straight?

[John Rumm]

Masking tape.

[Appollo]

Good idea, but have you ever known a house with a perfectly flat and square wall ! Sometimes the paint does go behind the tape and it ends up looking terrible.

[Cicero]

========================================= You can get a roller with a built-in edging tool to produce straight lines. I can't find a source (and it's too wet and windy to go searching in the shed) so you'll have to look in the usual sheds and possibly places on TV like QVC.

Cic.

[fictitiousemail]

I've a funny feeling I used tape in the bedroom and it was,as you say,terrible so I think I did it freehand it looks not bad

[Lino expert]

I've got differing colours on adjoining walls in one room and did it by hand - as you say "mechanical" devices are set up for straight edges and perfection. I used a smaller brush than for the rest of the walls, but apart from that you should find it works fine.

[Ian White]

Use masking tape to edge the lighter colour, and to get a good smooth line without wobbles. Try not to let the paint bleed under, but don't worry if it does a little. Peel off tape early, to leave a step edge, but allow plenty of time for paint to dry hard. If any paint did bleed under the tape, carefully scrape it off to restore a clean edge line.

Paint the darker colour up to that edge, starting with a 10mm flat artist's brush for the best possible control - far better than any decorating brush. Then broaden out that narrow band with a paintbrush in the usual way, and finally switch to the roller.

It takes a bit more time, but the results are pretty darn good. (There's an example right before my eyes where I sit at the computer, and if it didn't look perfect it would drive me crazy.)

[meow2222]

Neither is much of a problem. Masking tape is crepe paper so that it can bend. Paint runs can be kept to a minimum and touched up by hand afterards. Ye its slower than all 1 colour, but not difficult.

NT

[TheOldFellow]

On Sun, 23 Nov 2008 19:19:37 GMT Cicero wrote: ====

I have one, it's useless. Whatever you do paint gets in the wrong place and ruins things. Freehand with a soft brush upto a masked line of the first colour is best. (IMO)

R.

[BigWallop]

Cut a plastic bottle into a square, by taking the top and bottom off and cutting right through. Open it flat and use it as a straight edge. Slide the brush and plastic sheet together down / up the corner and it stops the paint from going where you don't want it to. It's also easy to wash the emulsion paint off it and use again.

Oh, and it's a very cheap form of paint masking.

[stuart noble]

IME it's bloody impossible without planting a bead or something in the corner. If nothing's straight you have to introduce something that is.

Anyway, multi coloured rooms remind me of the 50s and "making do". If only one wall needed painting, that's all you did.