Man Cave Painting 101 - Someone school me

[MMayhem2]

Men,

To make a long story short... Just got a new place and I figured I'd paint and fix everything up myself.. Why not right? I got everything I'd need and got to work the other day... Primed the walls, applied first coat (and being as naive as I am, I thought one coat would be enough) and am somewhat (really) upset with the lines that show. Is that common with the first coat? Or is it my technique? I may not have used enough paint at times. Do I need to apply the second coat to get a nice even finish? What do I do? I'm a somewhat picky guy when it comes to things like this. I'm very anxious to be done with it, finish moving in, etc. but if the second coat will solve this issue, I'll deal.

I know this question may seem elementary or amateur but.. I'm an amateur. I've googled, youtubed, etc and everything I see either contradicts a previous find or doesn't help me/answer the question.

Thanks in advance for the help.

[BrianBradford]

When I moved into my new crib, there was really REALLY fugly wallpaper in the master bedroom. I applied 1 coat of primer, without stripping the wallpaper off. You could see the print through the first coat of primer, but since it wasn't a water based primer, it cost be about $25.00 a gallon. So I said eh to putting on a second coat. I was nervous, but proceeded to put my first coat of paint on. Paint did a good job of covering the print and by the time the second coat of paint completely dried, you could not see the wallpaper at all! So in my experience, 1 coat was good enough for this low set bar kind of guy.

[KAZ]

First off I will admit I am far from a great painter... and to be honest I haaaaatttteeee painting....

But with that said, I think it really depends on the brand of paint used and the color. Whenever I used cheap paint, thinking all paint is the same, I found I was doing 3 - 4 coats to get an even finish. Now even with good paint, some colors just take tons of coats... I did a burgundy red in my old apartment kitchen and even with a tinted primer it took a good 4 coats to look even.

Now I just painted a few days ago a steel blue color (pics in this forum, Basement Build) and it was weird, one wall needed a second coat, the other two were fine with one. All walls were new rock and no primer was put on.

The only other tip I can give you is one that took me a while to do. I used to try and squeeze every ounce out of the roller, and that caused lines from the paint oozing out of the edges of the roller. I found just rolling soft ends up getting the best job done. Let the roller do the work, don't push it.

Like I said I am sure there are people on here much more experienced and better at painting tips, but this is what I have found works for me..

[huge1s]

You are pushing on the roller too hard, and yes... the brand of paint makes a difference Kwal or Sherwin Williams make good stuff. If you are going to try the one coat route.... Paint in a semi random "W" pattern and then go over it again horizontally (same section you just painted). This helps ensure that the texture on the wall is hit from every angle. Keep a wet edge and you should be fine. Again... don't push on the roller too hard.

(Wow...lot's of paint talk around this place lately)

[Trann]

Valuable lessons I learned when painting one bright colour (red) over another (blue)...

Trann's Upstairs Reno - The Perfect Man Cave (http://perfectmancave.com/forum/showthread.php?t=27237)

The thread also talks about creating crisp paint edges between two colours (eg: a stripe on a wall).

[MMayhem2]

Good tips/points. Would it help things if I went over the certain strips that are lighter without doing a complete second coat or is that just asking for trouble? I had a decent handle on it at first but then I tried to muscle the paint onto the wall with my roller thinking that it would go quicker anddddd... Here I am. I went from being all motivated to pressing too hard to rolling to paint off/not putting enough on, and all sorts of nonsense. The most surprising part of all of this is that I had nooooo problem with freehanding the edges/windows/baseboards and that seems to be a trouble spot for most.

[Trann]

I'm unsure if pictures will help but you may want to give it a shot so we can see what you mean.

In my experience with normal colours (beiges, off-whites) on primed drywall, I've found that the first coat is rarely perfect anyway because the texture of the roller is constantly pulling up paint. This isn't a bad thing, it's just what's supposed to happen: too thick, and it'll run anyway.

Do as huge1s suggests. Load the roller up and unload as he describes. You're not painting so much as putting paint on the wall to be evenly distributed. Once unloaded, you can then do the proper up-down over the Ws to pick up excess and lay down again.

When I paint, I never push; I'll push a bit to unload it but I'm right behind it rolling again, light but firm. I find using an extension on a roller causes uneven pressure, too, so I always do it without one.

When I do a second coat and the paint is unloaded and redistributed across the section being painted, I tend to use a feather-light roll from bottom to top as a finishing pass and then that area is done.

[KAZ]

I would say just do the whole wall gain....

[Quads]

What brand / type pain are you using?
What are you covering? Darn blue getting covered with eggshell white?
Did you use a primer or a sealer? (or both?)

It's not uncommon, even with a primer / sealer to have to put two possibly three coats down if you are covering a dark with a light. Two usually does it. But brand, and type will play a role on it.

I've got the task of covering eggplant with a very white-ish "cream" as the Wifey calls it in our bathroom. I planned for a tinted sealer and 3 coats of paint, but in my small test section (2'X2'), I think 2 applications will do it.

[MMayhem2]

I used the Lowe's Olympic primer and paint. One coat of primer and then I started painting. After reading the responses, I went back and put a 2nd coat on (ran out of paint before the final wall of course) and it made a tremendous difference. I'm looking to get some pics on here to show the progress but I have yet to find the camera cord for it during the move.

Now thankfully I'll have a better idea what to do when I start the next room.

Thanks again fellas

[Quads]

OK, good. People make the mistake that the primer is covering material and use two or three coats of it, and then wonder why the paint doesn't cover. The primer doesn't have any pigment in it. Paint does.

I'm going through the same process in the bathroom on covering eggplant puke color.

[pre0024]

I'd add not skimping on rollers and brushes...get some of a higher quality that won't be worthless after half a wall. FWIW we painted our abode with Valspar from Lowe's in a beige and covered the previous "mississippi mud" color with one coat.