That day I realized I'd been using painter's tape backwards for 5 years

I was patching drywall in my hallway last Saturday and my buddy Mike walked in, saw me putting tape on, and just started laughing. He said 'Dude, you're supposed to fold the edge, not leave it as a straight line.' I'd been doing it the lazy way since my first apartment in 2019, always getting fuzzy lines on my trim. Now I fold a tiny bit under on the edge and the lines come out razor sharp. Has anyone else had a basic tool trick that took way too long to learn?

4 comments

4 Comments

jana_jones27d ago

Taylor's point about the putty knife is something I read in a DIY blog a while back and it totally changed my painting game. I used to think folding was the only way to get clean lines, but sealing the edge with a putty knife works way better for me because it doesn't lift up overnight like the folded stuff does. My dad had the same reaction as your dad when I showed him, he was like "that's extra work" until he tried it and saw how much time he saved not fixing bleed-through. Sometimes the simplest tricks are the ones we overlook the longest, you know?

wren63827d ago

Wait, so you're telling me there's a way to do painter's tape that doesn't result in me cussing at my own walls for an hour? Man, Mike's a real one for letting you figure it out for five years before clueing you in though.

taylor.reese28d ago

Bro Mike doing the realest friend move by roasting you mid-project. I learned the hard way too but with painter's tape I had the opposite problem. I was folding the edge too much and it would lift up overnight so the paint would bleed under anyway. Now I just stick the tape down a quarter inch from the edge and run a putty knife along it to seal it tight. Works way better than any folding trick. My dad saw me doing it and told me I was wasting time lmao. Then he tried it himself and now he does it too.

murphy.mason28d ago

Hold up, you're telling me old school painters tape actually stays down overnight without lifting? I've had that same exact issue for years. I'd spend an hour taping everything off, come back in the morning, and half the edges were popped up and letting paint bleed under. It drove me crazy. Now I just use the cheap blue tape but I press it down harder than I used to, especially on corners and where the tape meets itself. I run my thumbnail along the whole edge before I start painting and that seems to do the trick most of the time. Your putty knife trick sounds way smarter though, I might have to steal that one.