How to paint a wall?
Clean the wall, fill and sand any damage, then cut a two-inch band along the edges with a brush and roll the field before that band dries. Two thin coats beat one heavy one, and the recoat time on the can is the one to follow.
Cutting in and rolling, in the right order
Cut in one wall at a time rather than the whole room. If a cut line dries before the roller reaches it, you get a visible halo where brush texture meets roller texture — the defect painters call flashing or picture-framing, and it cannot be fixed without recoating the whole wall.
Load the roller properly: roll it in the tray until it is evenly coated but not dripping. Work in overlapping passes, then finish each section with one light floor-to-ceiling pass to even the texture. Keep a wet edge and never go back over paint that has begun to set — that is what leaves roller marks.
Prep decides how the finish looks far more than technique does. Wash anything greasy, fill nail holes and dents, let filler dry, then sand flush and vacuum the dust. Sand glossy existing paint until it loses its shine or the new coat has nothing to grip.
If the house was built before 1978, do not sand or scrape until you have read the lead guidance — dry-sanding old paint is precisely the activity the federal rule exists to control.
How we sourced this
This answer is composed from our knowledge base, which holds only what a regulator, a standards body or a manufacturer supports. The sources behind it are listed below with the date we accessed each one. If a claim on this page has no source under it, that is a bug — tell us and we will fix it.
Where a figure is product-specific — coverage, dry time, recoat time, temperature limits — we point you at the manufacturer's technical data sheet rather than printing a general number as though it were a specification. That distinction is the most common error in this trade, and it is the one that costs people a repaint.
Common mistakes
- Cutting in the whole room first, then rolling. Every cut line will have dried and every one will flash.
- Skipping the sanding step on glossy existing paint, so the new coat has nothing to grip.
- Going back over paint that has started to set, which is what leaves roller marks.
- Sanding or scraping a pre-1978 wall without checking the lead rules first.
Related questions
Sources
- Sherwin-Williams. Product technical data sheets (accessed 2026-08-17).
- US Environmental Protection Agency. Renovation, Repair and Painting Program (accessed 2026-08-17).
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