Painting a room is more than picking out the right shade to fit your home’s personality. Preparation is vital to ensure that the project is easy and mess-free, so taping the room is a must.

Here are a few helpful hints on taping a room to guarantee your paint-job is clean, quick, and stress-free.

1. Buy tape that will give you a sharp line, that will come off nicely, and that will not leave any residue on the wall or surface. Hirshfield’s has a wide selection of tapes for all of your painting needs.
2. Get rid of dust and dirt on the surfaces you plan on taping.
3. When going to tape the room, make sure you put tape on woodwork, windows, fixtures, molding, and any other surfaces that you want to protect from paint. Our experts suggest buying tapes of different widths – use the wider tape to tape off a few inches of the ceiling to prevent your roller from getting wall color on the ceiling.
4. Tape off in sections, and lay the tape flat without stretching it.
5. When the tape is applied, use a putty knife to remove any kinks or air bubbles that paint could seep into it. This video shows you how to do it.
6. Contrary to popular belief, waiting for the paint to dry creates a risk of the paint bonding to the tape and ripping up your work. The best way to prevent this is to remove the masking tape when the paint is wet or just barely dry to the touch.

When removing the tape, a good rule of thumb is to pull the tape from the wall at a 45-degree angle – this helps to get the tape off in a straight line. Pull slowly and carefully.

If the tape is being stubborn and won’t come off of the wall, hold a blow dryer on low heat for as long as it takes to warm up the adhesive for easy removal.

Need more painting pointers? Visit the paint experts at any of our Hirshfield’s locations in Minnesota, Wisconsin and North Dakota.

Since Frank and Elizabeth Hirshfield opened their first store in 1894, it has been our mission to do the best job possible meeting customer needs and solving customer problems. Hirshfield’s. People and products you can trust.