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These pro secrets about the best way to use and care for your paintbrushes and paint rollers will make any paint job around the house easier, neater and give you beautiful results.
Those ragged edges and tiny beads of dried paint on your paint roller may seem harmless, but they'll leave ugly tracks in your paint job. Trim them off, leaving a slightly tapered edge, and your roller will be as good as new.
An old golf club brush is perfect for scrubbing off that crusty coat that builds up on paintbrushes. The plastic bristles scour away most of the crust without harming the brush. The brass bristles will take care of the stubborn spots.
To ensure you get a lifetime of use out of your synthetic paintbrushes, clean each one immediately after using it, before the paint has a chance to dry. Wipe the brush on newspaper to remove excess paint. Then stick the brush into a bucket of warm water and move it around to remove as much paint as possible.
Next, hold the brush under running water. Run a wire brush (or a kitchen fork) down the bristles to remove dried paint. When the water running off the bristles turns clear, the brush is clean.
Let each paintbrush air dry, then wrap it with the cardboard cover it came in or heavy paper (like grocery bag paper). To keep the bristles straight, hang the brushes from a nail or hook, or store them flat.
Cheap paint rollers shed all over the paint as you roll it on, but they’re good because they’re disposable—no cleanup! Before using one, wipe it with a self-adhesive lint roller to remove all the loose fuzz—no more picking it off wet walls.
If you do a lot of roll-on painting and use premium roller covers that you don't want to throw away, get a Roller Washer ($15). You'll be glad you did. It's easy to use and gets the rollers incredibly clean—a task that takes a long time by hand, and even then you rarely get a truly clean nap. Just hook up the hose to a faucet, slide the roller cover into the tube, and watch the water flush out the paint in minutes. Order the Roller Washer online by typing “roller cover washer”into your search window.
Cut in the perimeters of ceilings with ceiling white and a 3-in. brush. Don't worry if you lap over onto the wall. Roll on a second coat of ceiling paint in the opposite direction of the first coat.
Soak oil brushes in cleaning solvent without bending the bristles and ruining the brush! Clip a medium or large binder clip around the handle of a brush and spread the arms to span a cleaning container so the brush bristles don't touch the bottom.
Hang your paintbrushes out of harm's way by installing a couple of screw eyes or cup hooks on the bottom of a couple of rafters or floor joists. Then thread the brush handles through a stiff wire (or welding rod) and hang it all up.
Share what's on your mind and see what other DIYers are thinking about.
February 19, 12:03 PM [GMT -5]
Excellent practical advice.
October 04, 10:21 PM [GMT -5]
You can save a lot of money on paint rollers (and your water bill) by forgetting about trying to clean your paint roller but simply putting a zip-lock bag around a freshly used one. It can stay wet for up to a week. Allowing you ample time to paint for several days with the same roller.
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