interior painting tips???

[Mango]

All you dyi'ers, I want to bounce this off ya!

I need to paint a few rooms and I have come to the following conclusions on the easiest way to paint a rooms or anything interior, only because I have not had the greatest success in the "top to bottom method"

Now, the conventional wisdom say do the ceiling, the walls and then baseboards or...paint from the top down....my problem with that is I can never get a sharp straight paint job where the celing and walls meet. and I dont want to disassemble the room or the baseboards...etc

So...

Assuming a normal track home bedroom....10 by 12 or 30 by 50...whatever, and assuming you have *smooth* walls, I think the following works best in ease and best paint job....

1- obviously prep all the surfaces to fill in holes etc. and use good quality brushes of the proper width etc....

2 remove all hardware from the wall and patch where necessary.

3-paint the walls top to bottom....up to the ceiling and down to the baseboards.....

Note...now most would say...NO...do the ceiling first...

4- allow the paint to dry (one day) 5- tape the walls for the ceiling....and tape the walls at the doors and baseboards. Here is where care is critical for those sharp seams...so take your time to apply the painters tape...and use only painters tape....4 inch wide. and get it on straight and true.....

6-Paint the ceiling....don't get carried away so as to splash the paint on the walls which would ruin your wall paint job....

7- for the baseboards, gather some kraft paper and squeze it between the floor and baseboard 8 now your can paint the baseboard knowing that the lines will be straight and true.

so...whats wrong with this method?

Mango

[m Ransley]

Whats wrong , it is to time consuming. Paint the ceiling then learn to cut in, maybe a paint pad will work, but I never used one, get a good quality brush cutting in will be easy. Or just paint it all one color.

[Philip Lewis]

*Prep all surfaces (including removal of hardware and degreasing wash, etc) *Paint ceiling and wait till dry *Put masking tape on ceiling area where you would like the wall paint to end. *Paint the edge of tape with ceiling color. (let dry) *Paint the walls/dry *score tape edge and remove.

Any seep under on the tape will be of the ceiling color. The paint seeps under and creates a better seal for the tape.

(according to a trading spaces episode anyway... ;)

[Hopkins]

I would first practice cutting in and getting a smooth line. And you'd need a good brush -- I haven't been impressed by the brushes I've seen at HD or Lowe's. My favorite is the Porter paint line. If you don't have a Porter in your area, check out some brushes at MAB or Sherwin-Williams.

You're way is more time consuming and, by the way, painted baseboards [and casings] are typically caulked to the wall. Honestly, I've never seen it not caulked.

If you're intent on masking, why don't you mask the ceiling instead of the wall? Textured ceilings? I think you'll need the wait more than a day -- just because the paint is dry doesn't mean it's cured. Also, You'll need blue tape [or one of those other colors that won't pull off fresh paint]. AND, whatever you use, make sure you get flat tape. Regular masking tape has a texture to it, and will allow seepage unless you use something flat and hard -- like a putty kife -- to flatten it against the surface. Or use flat tape.

Conventional wisdom is conventional for a reason, although I do things in this order---

1. Ceiling [so you don't rain down on everything else you've done]
2. Casings [window and door trim] [cutting in the walls against the casings is easier than vice versa.
3. Walls
4. Baseboard