The trick is to remember, “The wall GOES BIG!” I tell my painters this all the time and it’s a good way to remember where to put your line. So whether you are taping off the wall to paint the ceiling or you are brushing the top of the wall in next to the ceiling, you want the wall color to be just a smidge higher than the wall actually goes.

In application this means that you run your tape just barely and I mean barely touching the ceiling if you are getting ready to spray the ceiling and are masking off the walls. Or in the case that you are brushing the top off the wall you want to cut your line in so that the wall color touches the ceiling but without really getting the wall color onto ceiling. With practice, this becomes a very fast and efficient way of cutting in the ceiling.

The reason for this has to do with the way your eye perceives this transition from a distance. The wall is the focal point and so if that color just barely touches the ceiling you really don’t notice it. On the other hand, if that white ceiling color just barely touches down onto the wall, it sticks out like ketchup on a wedding dress! This technique allows you to maintain good speed with your brush and also leave a nice appearance.

The same is also true for cutting in your lines on your baseboards and window/door casings; the wall goes big. Now where you are dealing with a door or window casing at eye level you may want to use tape to help make a nice clean straight line here, but using the same strategy of the wall color just barely coming onto the trim.

So hopefully this tip will help you realize that you don’t always have to split the line at the exact right spot if you will make sure and put it on the right side. This technique can be applied in a lot of different situations if you understand that whatever is the focal background needs to GO BIG!

I did this for many years until a painter friend showed me a trick that will for ever change the way I paint with a roller. First of all you must begin by promising never ever to buy a cheap roller cover. Did you promise? Okay, you must now go buy a 1/2″ or 3/4″ lambs skin roller cover for somewhere between $15-$20 a pop. I know expensive right? If you were like me you became accustomed to buying the pack of 3 for about $6 right? Well this one lambs skin roller will give you more life than a dozen of those cheap roller. You will paint faster and best of all, they are twice as easy to clean out!

So now that you own a beautiful lambs skin roller, you will be tempted to sleep next to it its so soft and fluffy! But here is the real trick and what I have been building up for; after you have used your new roller and it is full of paint, you take your 5in1 and push out as much paint as you can with this tool just like you would with any other roller. Then you take the roller, on the frame with an extension pole (I make the assumption that you paint with your roller on a 3 – 6 foot extension pole as most painters do) and drop it in a 5 gallon bucket. Now you take a water source such as a hose and begin filling the bucket of water. Sometimes its easier to hold the hose between your legs while its filling the bucket so you can have two hands on the pole attached to the roller. Now that you have about a gallon of water in the bucket you begin to rapidly stir the roller in the water as if you are rowing up stream about to be sent over a giant water fall. Do this until the 5 gallon bucket is about half full.

Now simply dump the 5 gallon bucket out and repeat 2 more times. Assuming you have the water on at a decent pace, this will take you a total of less than 2 minutes and your roller will be as clean as new! This is best done outside in the grass but can also be done inside using a large sink or another bucket of water that you have a friend pour in to the bucket while you row. Then to dry the roller out run it along the ground or on a fence at a good pace and it will spin it self dry. Let stand for a bit while it dries so it stays fluffed up and the next time you use it you will think you just pulled it out of the wrapper.