My husband and I thought we were pretty good at interior painting,
based on the good results of a few rooms we did in our new house. However, we
recently did a small powder room in a very deep shade of red and it seems that
darker colors take more expertise than lighter colors. Or at least it's less
forgiving of mistakes.
After performing wallpaper-abatement, we put on two coats of primer.
I'm not sure why, but my husband thought it was a good idea. First coat was
white primer and the second one was tinted pink to blend more with our final
paint color. Then we painted... dried, painted, dried, painted. We've done
four coats of paint now and although it's a deep intense shade of red, you can
still see "roller marks".
Perhaps we did too large areas at once, and the edges dried between
the sections, so it looks darker where the roller strokes overlapped. They
haven't changed with each coat, so it looks like sloppy work from the very
first coat are persisting through our efforts to even out the color.
Next weekend we're going to try a faux finish to try to make it look
more like an intended result and less like sloppy work. Or does anyone have
other suggestions for smoothing out the color to a consistent shade that would
work better?

- Sharon
"Gravity... is a harsh mistress!"

- Sharon
"Gravity... is a harsh mistress!"


Dark red is one of the worst colors to get to come out even. It can
take many coats but it should work if you are using a good brand of
paint that has good hiding properties. I use Benjamine Moore and Behr
and they both work after four coats. Technique is important for all
painting. You must get the paint on, spread it out, and then go over
the whole wall with the roller in one, more or less, continuous up and
down motion.

wrote:
- Sharon
"Gravity... is a harsh mistress!"


Dark red is one of the worst colors to get to come out even. It can
take many coats but it should work if you are using a good brand of
paint that has good hiding properties. I use Benjamine Moore and Behr
and they both work after four coats. Technique is important for all
painting. You must get the paint on, spread it out, and then go over
the whole wall with the roller in one, more or less, continuous up and
down motion.


I'd think long and hard before going the faux finish route. Unless you
have experience, trying to do a faux finish may just make another
harder to fix problem. They can be great, but it takes some experience
to know how to do it right.

wrote in message
oups.com...
Dark red is one of the worst colors to get to come out even. It can
take many coats but it should work if you are using a good brand of
paint that has good hiding properties. I use Benjamine Moore and Behr
and they both work after four coats. Technique is important for all
painting. You must get the paint on, spread it out, and then go over
the whole wall with the roller in one, more or less, continuous up and
down motion.

I have done dark colors (browns and reds) in one or two coats well. My
approach is to work quickly and never let any of it dry before the blotch
next to it is painted. When painting the new blotch, I run the roller well
into the old blotch next to and above it, feathering it out. I don't try to
stretch the paint out either - I use plenty on the roller but not enough on
the wall to make the paint run. Using Benjamin Moore paint and a good
medium roller I just never get this issue.
Tomes

Use good paint. Behr is my first choice. Load your roller until it's
almost dripping. Don't 'stretch' your paint - if you are applying
pressure to the roller to get coverage, you're stretching. Use long, even
strokes and feather into just finished areas. Roll slow - speed kills.
Going too fast will make it harder for the paint to adhere, causes air
bubbles and spray.



Sharon ) writes:
My husband and I thought we were pretty good at interior painting,
based on the good results of a few rooms we did in our new house. However, we
recently did a small powder room in a very deep shade of red and it seems that
darker colors take more expertise than lighter colors. Or at least it's less
forgiving of mistakes.
After performing wallpaper-abatement, we put on two coats of primer.
I'm not sure why, but my husband thought it was a good idea. First coat was
white primer and the second one was tinted pink to blend more with our final
paint color. Then we painted... dried, painted, dried, painted. We've done
four coats of paint now and although it's a deep intense shade of red, you can
still see "roller marks".
Perhaps we did too large areas at once, and the edges dried between
the sections, so it looks darker where the roller strokes overlapped. They
haven't changed with each coat, so it looks like sloppy work from the very
first coat are persisting through our efforts to even out the color.
Next weekend we're going to try a faux finish to try to make it look
more like an intended result and less like sloppy work. Or does anyone have
other suggestions for smoothing out the color to a consistent shade that would
work better?

- Sharon
"Gravity... is a harsh mistress!"

In article .com, " writes:

Dark red is one of the worst colors to get to come out even. It can
take many coats but it should work if you are using a good brand of
paint that has good hiding properties. I use Benjamine Moore and Behr
and they both work after four coats. Technique is important for all
painting. You must get the paint on, spread it out, and then go over
the whole wall with the roller in one, more or less, continuous up and
down motion.

Wow, NOW you tell me. ;-) Seriously, I appreciate your answer. We
are using Behr. The color is almost, but not quite even, now that we have 4
coats and it's had a couple days to fully dry (or cure). Do you think one
more coat will do it? We found that the paint dried very quickly, so we were
only able to do about 3 sq ft areas without getting dried edges of the parts
we'd already done. Also, do you think adding a little bit of faux glaze will
prevent it from drying too quickly so that we can try smoothing over the whole
wall as you suggest?

- Sharon
"Gravity... is a harsh mistress!"

In article .com, writes:

Dark red is one of the worst colors to get to come out even. It can
take many coats but it should work if you are using a good brand of
paint that has good hiding properties. I use Benjamine Moore and Behr
and they both work after four coats. Technique is important for all
painting. You must get the paint on, spread it out, and then go over
the whole wall with the roller in one, more or less, continuous up and
down motion.


I'd think long and hard before going the faux finish route. Unless you
have experience, trying to do a faux finish may just make another
harder to fix problem. They can be great, but it takes some experience
to know how to do it right.

Yeah, we tried some ragging in a previous house. One room didn't quite
work (IMO, hubby loved it) where we used white and yellow to try to soften a
pepto-bismol color that the previous owner had done. But in a small bathroom
of the same house, we painted it a retina-burning bright yellow and then
softened it with white ragging and it came out very pretty.
Except for the corners.
My husband suggested maybe trying a dragging brush on this current
room. I'm doubtul. The color is already so pretty and all we really need to
do is even it out. So I was hoping you guys would have suggestions other than
faux finishes.
It sounds like maybe we haven't done anything terribly wrong with the
roller, but just need one more coat?

- Sharon
"Gravity... is a harsh mistress!"

"Sharon" wrote in message
...
In article .com,
" writes:

Dark red is one of the worst colors to get to come out even.

We did dark red in our family room, on brand new sheetrock. It was a B****
to do, and it sucked up tons of paint. My room is big, about 26X20, and I
think we used about 6 gallons of paint and 3 or 4 of primer. We used
Benjamin Moore. We did two coats of tinted primer, followed by 2 coats of
paint, and it was blotchy in a bunch of spots. With the 3rd coat, it
finally came out good. The trick, according to the Benjamin Moore guy was
to wait 24-48 hours in between each coat to allow the pigment to fully dry
and cure. Apparently it takes that long becuase there is so much pigment in
the darker red colors. It was a pain to do, but we are very pleased with
the results in the end