A simple trick for painting trim that I was doing backwards

I was painting the baseboards in my living room last week and kept getting a little ridge where the wall met the trim. My buddy, who used to work for a painter, came over and asked why I was painting the wall first. I told him that's just how I always did it. He said to try painting the trim first, then cutting in the wall color up to it. I gave it a shot on the next section and the line was way cleaner, with no ridge at all. It seems so obvious now, but I must have painted five rooms the hard way. Has anyone else found a basic order-of-operations thing that made a huge difference?

2 comments

2 Comments

rosethompson17d ago

Wait, you were painting the WALL first? That's blowing my mind. I have to sit down. I've painted so much trim and I can't even picture doing it that way around. The whole point is you get a clean line by painting the trim color first because it's easier to cut the wall color in a straight line against it. My brain is short circuiting thinking about the mess I would make. You must have the patience of a saint to have done FIVE rooms like that.

sarah76317d agoMost Upvoted

My whole life is a series of "wait, that's not how you do it?" moments. I just figured bigger surface area first, and then I'd tape off the trim to fix my mistakes. The amount of painter's tape I went through could wrap a small car. My husband still finds random blue flecks on the baseboards and just sighs.