A friend asked me today why he kept getting streaks while painting. This was my response. Bear in mind, rolling is the easy part of painting. 90% of the work of painting is in cleaning, preparing, cutting in, and cleaning along the way. However, during my few months as a professional painter, I learned these nuggets of wisdom from some very experienced painters.
- If the surface is flat, use roller covers with a 3/8″ nap
- If the surface is textured, use roller covers with a 1/2″ or greater nap
- Matte/flat paint hides surface imperfections better and is usually more attractive in any setting. Glossy paint, on the other hand, is more durable and water resistant, making it appropriate for bathrooms and kitchens. Intermediate finishes such as satin and eggshell are popular for doors and moulding, due to reasonable washability without the full shine of glossy paint. (When I say glossy, I mean semi-gloss. Full gloss is for institutional bathrooms and shit like that). More expensive acrylic-latex paints are durable even in flat finish. They have superior washability and water resistance. My favorite.
- Do not dip the roller in paint or ‘pull’ paint up the pan under the roller. The correct way to get paint on the roller is to roll it down the pan until it merely touches the pool of paint, lift it, and start rolling from the top again, repeating until the roller has an even amount of paint all around.
- Depending on the texture of the wall, one application of paint to the roller could cover about the size of your body or more. This varies widely by paint type and brand.
- Roll the paint out until there are no streaks. Streaks generally occur along one or both edges of the roller and are a sign that you need to keep rolling and spread the paint more.
- A ‘roller mark’ is an unavoidable mark left when the roller changes directions. These flatten out considerably during drying, especially with good paints. Try to make your last roll over a given wet patch go floor to ceiling. This minimizes roller marks at eye level.
- Use new roller covers frequently. Don’t bother ever trying to wash one, because they lose their quality very quickly. Essentially, once you get paint on a roller cover, you can never wash it or let it dry. You can paint up to two rooms with one cover if it never gets dry, but that is rare. Plan to have a fresh roller cover handy at all times.
- If you or a previous tenant over-applied paint and allowed raised streaks or drips to dry in place, then those streaks will show through several subsequent coats of paint. Flat/matte finish pain is much better at concealing those once they are there, and you can use a medium sanding sponge to gently even them out before applying another coat. Be careful; if you sand too hard or scrape off the drips, you’ll probably rip the paint and need to spackle and sand again to get it smooth.
- One coat is almost never enough, unless colors are very similar. However, it is extremely rare to need more than two coats.
