When you’re painting a wall or ceiling or other surface two different colors, you have to go about it the right way to avoid having a blur of overlapped colors along the line separating them. You want a crisp line that makes it look like two colors on two different objects were set in place against one another. Here’s how professional painters do it.
For simplicity’s sake, let’s say you want to paint half of a wall black and half of it white. You could just use your judgment and hope your brush hand is steady and skilled enough to make a perfectly straight meeting line. After trying this and realizing it’s impossible, get out your painter’s tape.
In and of itself, painter’s tape won’t allow you to accomplish what you’re after. It’s all in the way you use it and the way you add color to the walls.
Step 1:
Add white paint to the side of the wall you want to be white. Actually, paint a little farther past what will be your midline.
Step 2:
Let the paint dry.
Step 3:
Apply the painter’s tape from top to bottom in the place on the wall where you want the white to end and the black to begin.
Step 4:
This is important – especially if your wall has any kind of raised texture, no matter how slight the texture might be. After the tape is in place, paint more white across the tape so that the tape is fully painted and the new white paint extends into the area that soon will be black.
Step 5:
Let the paint dry.
What you’ve done in Step 4 is created a seal along the soon-to-be-black side of the tape. That seal will prevent black paint from edging its way beneath the tape and causing a blurred line after the tape is removed.
Step 6:
Paint the second half of the wall black.
Step 7:
Peel off the tape before the black paint has fully dried to prevent sticking.
Painter’s tape is just one trick of the painter’s trade
To get fantastic results with all your painting projects, you need more than painter’s tape. Here are some tips.
- Thoroughly clean all surfaces to be painted and let them dry before adding paint
- Scrape off all peeling paint and sand down rough spots before painting
- Purchase high quality brushes and rollers – don’t use junk in the hardware store’s bargain bin
- Buy excellent paint like Sherwin-Williams and Benjamin Moore brands
- For discolored walls or walls being painted a color different from the original color, always use a good primer
- Take your time – not only will this allow you to produce a better finished product, it will also prevent spills and paint sprays
If you have an interior or exterior painting project coming up and you’re more interested in a fabulous result than in doing the work yourself, Franklin Painting of Farmington, CT, is ready to help. We do all types of painting including dual-colored surfaces. Call us at (877) 646-7774.
