Painting: 3 Products I Regret Buying

I've done a lot of painting in the paste few months and I've spent quite a bit of money at Lowes; some money I regret wasting! So I thought it would be helpful if I posted what I wish someone warned me about! Let's dive in!

Save Your Money!

Number One: This is the Shur-Line Classic Paint Edger and we had read a lot of good reviews about this product. The first room we painted we were excited to use this and we thought we'd just roll through all the edges. We, sadly, were wrong. When you dip it in the paint you have to use very small amounts because once paint leaks to the little wheels you'll no longer have a clean edge. We were usually using it along the ceiling and because you could only use a small amount it was an awful lot of trips up and down the ladder. Finally we just gave up. 

We also bought it's sister product that allows you to paint corners quickly. After using the edger we didn't even open it and returned it. Corners aren't hard to paint anyway. It seems a lot of products are just trying to make the job go by faster but the reality is, if you would like to the room to look professionally painted, it's going to take some time. 

Number Two: After the Edger didn't work we decided to use the common tape method for the edges. I'm sure this product works wonderful for some people and this might work really well for you too, but we weren't too impressed. This is ScotchBlue Edge Lock Painters Tape. We actually used this product a lot throughout our paint job and finally gave up. Applying tape is a task in itself that takes almost as long as the whole painting job. And half the time it doesn't quite work. We tried using it the correct way but every time, no matter how clean and dry the wall, no matter how hard we pressed the edges down it still had paint leak through. Finally by the last room we decided to just use a brush and go over the edges slowly; that worked better than the tape. 

(Also, it's really frustrating to watch commercials of this product working perfectly.)

Now, I've never tried any other brands so who knows but tape is pretty expensive and I found that a steady, slow hand did the job better. But if you are going to use tape here's a few tips:

1. Press the tape down right before you go over it with a paint brush. 

2. Usually the top we'll be fine, it's the baseboards that gravity pulls the paint down so DO NOT use very much paint.

3. Take the paint off before the paint dries. Otherwise it will take some of the paint on the wall with it.

4. If you paint Wall A and then want to put tape on the corner of the wall to paint Wall B, make sure you wait a day for Wall A to completely dry. Otherwise your tape might rip off your paint.

5. Turn any fans/AC off. The movement of air will cause your tape to loosen. 

6. Paint right you tape. One time we tried to tape the night before and paint in the morning. Bad idea. Most of the tape had let go of the wall/ceiling. It doesn't stick for very long. 

Number Three: I'm not sure of the exact name or brand of this product but we'll just say any little roller with a foam head. This paints terribly. We bought this when we were painting our cabinets and thought it would come in handing. Wrong again. The foam rolling was kind of difficult to get on the holder and then it just kind of smeared the paint around. It never applied an even coat. We also bought a sister product to this so we could more easily paint the wall behind our water heater. That one hardly rolled. Brushes and actually paint rollers are much better than any foam product I've used. Maybe we just got unlucky with faulty ones, but I won't be spending money on these kinds of products again. 

So those are some products we'll definitely steer away from next time we have to paint. Again, some of these might work wonderfully for you, but for us they were a bit disappointing. If you have any tips on how to make these products worth money please share!

Next I'll probably do a post on some of the best products we've purchased! Hope this helps! :)