One of the biggest challenges for a homeowner or painting contractor is painting lines that look perfectly straight. At Absolute Painting & Power Washing we have been working on perfecting this for many years now. Often times we are trying to make a straight line on a very uneven or textured surface which really makes it difficult. Many companies have marketed special tools that claim to make this an easy thing to do. In most cases, it’s not as easy as they make it look. I’m sure every painting contractor in the Portland area has special tricks for painting straight lines but here are a few of ours.
If you are painting a wall in your home and you need to make straight lines at the ceiling, we recommend applying caulk between the wall and ceiling first and letting it dry first. That way if you have a rough surface between them you will smooth it out to help make the line straight.
If you are masking off your baseboards or door frames for painting you will often find that once the masking is pulled off you will see the paint has bled and messed up your line. Often times we will tape off the woodwork first and then run a thin bead of caulk partially on the wall and partially on the tape. Once you have painted the surface and it’s started to dry you can pull the tape off and you have a beautiful clean line. This also works if trying to make a line on a rounded corner of a wall.
We recently did a project for a property management company in Hillsboro where they wanted horizontal stripes painted on a wall. This is a bit tougher for someone who doesn’t have a lot of painting experience or specific painting tools. We used a laser level to get our lines and tape straight and then caulked over the tape, which left very precise lines. We are always happy to offer advice if you decide to tackle a project yourself or we can assist you with your painting needs.
