I was in Sherwin Williams a couple weeks ago, getting paint for the entry wall. When I was checking out, the clerk asked me if I needed any painter’s tape for my project. The thing is, I have the worst time with painter’s tape. In our last house, I remember getting the delicate surface stuff to use on our freshly painted walls when I wanted to “easily” paint our trim and it bled everywhere. From them I have relied on my steady hand–until the entry project. I thought, “I’ll give it another try!” The paint bled. You can see it in this photo from the bench post:
This was an earlier coat of paint, before my trip to Sherwin Williams, Â and I ended up touching it up with my steady hand and 2″ angled brush. I told the nice clerk a shortened version of my distaste of painter’s tape and then she told me something that would change my life–we’ve been doing it wrong.
This isn’t that tip to paint over all of your tape first in the current wall color, because that is not a time saver and it just hides the fact that it is bleeding everywhere. If I am spending money on painter’s tape–I just want it to work. So first, Frog Tape is special. She told me it has a built-in powdered gel adhesive (or something) that is activated when wet and makes the tape seal to your walls so no paint can seep in! If you’re lucky, while you’re painting this will get activated as you go. That is never, never the case for me. The secret, she said, is running a damp rag over the tape before painting to activate the sealing gel. Here’s a picture-esque demo!
Boom! The right one I didn’t use the damp rag on and you can see in some places my paint did a good job activating that gel and in some spots…terrible! The left side I ran a damp rag over it quickly and then painted. I can’t believe the difference. Frog Tape, I’ve been doing you wrong. Did you know this?
Wish I had read this yesterday morning! Have had paint bleed dark green onto white, gutted. Wish they wrote this onto the frog tape box… or website!
Thank you. Did not know and I’ve been doing this a long time.
Thanks! This could be a game changer! We are in the process of painting our baseboards in our almost century home! There is tons of trim in this old place! We used frog tape in one area but it didn’t work as well as we would have liked so I will be trying this trick in the second room and let you know how it turns out
Me too!! I tried the frog tape and never knew to get it wet…thank you for sharing!!
This is a great tip…wish I had seen it yesterday!
In addition to the slight bleeding that I had there was one other problem…. We have a knock down finish on walls and ceiling. I taped the ceiling and painted the walls. When I tried to remove the tape the paint started coming off as well. I used a razor to score the tape so it wouldn’t keep happening.
What did I do wrong???
We got the same issue and found the trick.
peel the painter tape as soon as the paint work is done and while touching the paint if it doesn’t come to your fingers, its time as its almost dry and peel the tape first.