How Do You Paint High Ceilings in an Open Floor Plan Home

Nothing about a twenty foot wall looks difficult until the first roller pass shows a seam halfway up, and the running record temecula interior painting stevie rep holds shows that most open plan repaints in Temecula, CA go wrong at exactly that height. Interior painting on tall surfaces is mostly a question of access and pace.

Getting to the top of the wall

A ladder cannot hold a roller at a steady angle for a full-height pass, so crews working two story living rooms use rolling scaffold or a plank set between two stable platforms. The platform lets the painter walk the wall instead of climbing and descending every few feet, and that keeps the roller moving without stops. Where scaffold will not fit, an extension pole with a fresh nap sleeve covers the upper wall, but the cut in at the ceiling still has to be brushed by someone standing at that height.

Where the cut lines fall

Many open floor plans in Temecula Valley homes step the ceiling down over the kitchen or hallway, which creates a shadow line and a change of plane. The cut in follows the corner, never the shadow. Masking tape on a textured ceiling tends to pull the texture, so most painters cut that edge freehand with a sash brush and a steady wrist.

Keeping a wet edge on a large wall

A continuous wall that runs from the entry through the dining area is too big to roll in one sitting from a single spot. The trick is to work in vertical bands from ceiling to baseboard, and to finish each band while its neighbor is still wet. Stopping in the middle of a wall and picking up later leaves a lap mark that shows as a darker stripe under afternoon sun coming through tall windows. Two coats of acrylic latex, with the second coat started only after the first is dry to the touch, hides most of that risk.

Sheen across rooms that share one wall

When a single wall serves the living room, dining area and stair, the sheen has to be the same everywhere on it. An eggshell finish hides roller texture better than satin on a long wall, and flat is easier to touch up but marks when someone leans on it.

Setting up the room before the first coat

Tall rooms collect dust on the upper ledges, light fixtures and window casings, and that dust ends up in wet paint if nobody wipes it first. Floors are covered with canvas drop cloths, since plastic is slippery under scaffold feet. Patching and sanding at height come before primer, and spackle patches get a spot of primer so they do not flash through the topcoat.

Open rooms repaint well when the access is planned first and the roller is never made to stop mid-wall.