Everything You Need to Paint a Room

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Harry Sawyers has written and edited articles on tools and home improvement since 2005. Industrial Airless Paint Sprayer

Everything You Need to Paint a Room | Wirecutter

Painting may be the original DIY job, but when it comes to choosing tools, take a cue from the pros. We’ve consulted professional painters with more than a century of experience between them. We’ve also drawn on our own experience painting and repainting our own homes.

Between holding its color, resisting stains, and being easy to clean, high-quality paint offers great long-term value. It’s also easier to apply, with coats that go on evenly and provide full coverage.

This paint goes on easy and combines coverage, durability, and cleanability. Half the painters we spoke to consider it their paint of choice.

The second-most-mentioned paint among pros we talked to, this also goes on easily and covers well.

Combination paint-and-primer mixes are tempting, but using a standalone primer is a sure way to hide previous colors and get even coverage with new paint in as few coats as possible. If you’re not convinced, at least spot-prime the patched areas.

This universal water-based primer bonds with any kind of old paint or bare drywall, blocking colors and minor stains and giving you a pristine substrate for whatever new coat you want to apply on top. Pro painters swear by it.

A good paintbrush seems like a tool for pros, but less-experienced painters have the most to gain: A good brush makes your work look better with less effort, is more forgiving of mistakes, and applies more paint per stroke, so you’ll go faster.

In our experience, Purdy’s blended synthetic-bristle brushes hold and evenly distribute all kinds of paint, and they last forever when cleaned and dried after use. A 2½-inch angled sash style cuts in precisely to hit areas a roller can’t reach.

Covering the walls and ceiling, rollers put on about 90 percent of the paint on interior rooms. Woven roller covers—which don’t cost much more than the cheapest foam ones—offer less shedding, more even coverage, and easier cleanup after each use.

Often considered alongside Purdy as a brand that many pros use, Wooster roller covers resist shedding, clean easily, hold a lot of paint, lay it evenly, and will last indefinitely if you wrap them up or clean them before the paint dries.

There are two main things to look for in a roller frame: a threaded bottom end (so it can accept an extension pole) and internal bearings (so it doesn’t get stuck). This Wooster frame has both, and it’s nearly as affordable as no-name options.

A metal roller tray is much easier to use than a flimsy plastic option—it’s better able to hold the paint level, easier to secure atop a ladder, and more likely to survive drops or crushes. Add some plastic tray liners to make cleanup even easier.

You can’t paint a room adequately without a stable way to reach the top of the walls. A full ladder is best but can be bulky and expensive. For renters, we suggest a far more affordable and easy-to-store step stool.

With its top two platform steps, the Gorilla provides more comfort and easier balancing compared with a regular stepladder.

The Gorilla 2-Step is light enough to carry around with painting supplies, but it feels sturdy enough to stand on and clicks securely in place.

You need a screwdriver to remove switch plates, outlet covers, door hardware, and sometimes shelves or other wall-mounted storage you’d rather not paint around. A flathead driver is a pretty handy tool to pry a paint can open, too.

The MegaPro has the most well-rounded features of any screwdriver we found. It has an ergonomic handle and a smooth ratcheting action, and it comes with all the right bits, storing them conveniently in the handle.

For removing switch covers, working with cabinet hardware, and opening or closing paint cans, the Anvil set has all the essentials in a small package at a great price.

Prep work is key to a successful paint job, and painter’s tape is a perfect example why. Good tape keeps wall paint off the trim or ceiling, stops paint from oozing (or “bleeding”) beneath the adhesive, and comes off clean when you’re done.

With edges designed to leave crisp, straight lines, waterproof FrogTape has an edge on generic masking tapes, which inevitably let a blotch show through. If you have extra tape after the job, use it to label kitchen leftovers.

When you’re painting a room, move everything out that you can; push the rest to the middle of the room and cover it with a drop cloth. A good canvas cloth will absorb drips and won’t bleed through its seams, and you can wash and reuse it.

Go big with a drop cloth, such as this nearly 9-by-12-foot, 8-ounce canvas model from Everbilt. It’ll capably cover a couch, protect a large area of floor, or drape over a collection of furniture in the middle of your project room.

Between opening paint cans, scraping old coatings out of corners, and filling in for a putty knife on patching work, this gizmo does a lot—and a good one can assist with every part of the painting process except for the actual painting.

This is the only painter’s multitool that we found capable of cleaning two sizes of roller covers. It can also open paint cans, scrape old plaster, and crack open a beer, among many other tasks.

The Hyde 6-in-1 doesn’t have the best features of our main pick, but it is cheap, and you can still use it to open a can of paint, scrape off material, apply putty, or clean a large roller.

Before painting, another critical prep step is wiping down the walls to remove dust, cobwebs, dirt, and stains. You could do it with a few damp rags, but with a dust mop’s long pole you can make broad sweeping motions and get it done in a hurry.

The O-Cedar Dual-Action Microfiber Flip Mop’s wide double-sided head can hold more dirt than that of any other dust mop we tested.

Pro painters use one of these on just about every job, and if you have exceptionally large, tall walls (such as in a suburban entryway), you might need one too. You can also fit a sanding pad on it for help with patching and smoothing damaged walls.

You don’t strictly need a pole to extend your roller’s reach, but it can help you work quickly without moving the ladder as often. This model’s threaded tip fits our roller frame pick, extends from 6 to 12 feet, and locks every 6 inches.

Pro painters use work lights set at sharp angles against the wall to reveal imperfections. You’ll probably appreciate similar effects from a headlamp, which can be especially helpful at prep stages to make sure you’ve sanded patched areas smooth.

Bright, durable, and long-running, the Spot offers the best mix of the most important features at an attainable price.

The separate, dedicated buttons for red and white light make this our favorite budget light.

Ventilation helps primer or paint dry, which keeps your job moving on to the next coat. It also helps you feel cool while you work.

The compact Vornado 630 can send breezes to the far corners of a large room, is easy to control and clean, and has a long-established record for reliability.

Infinitely adjustable fan speed, energy efficiency, and a 10-year warranty help offset the Vornado 610DC’s high price.

Any big plastic cup can act as a dip cup for brush work—you need it to be wide enough for a brush to fit in and tip off on the rim, and deep enough to hold a few inches’ worth of paint without being so full that it’s sloshing or spilling out.

With a more flexible plastic than the stiffer Fage containers, and a better price than any of the fancier artisanal stuff, Stonyfield yogurt containers are our first recommendation for a yogurt pick repurposed as a paint cup. Do not eat the paint.

Unless you’re painting before you move in, you’ll need to pull some furniture away from the walls. Using furniture sliders saves the floor, saves your back, and puts less stress on furniture legs than forcing your stuff to the middle of the room.

These pads won’t stick forever, and any exposed adhesive is a dust magnet, but that’s true of every peel-and-stick furniture slider we’ve used. This variety pack is a bargain, with sizes that should fit your furniture legs without needing a trim.

Unless you’re about to open a can of polyurethane (do not paint your walls with polyurethane), it’s better to shake a can to mix the contents.

This is admittedly a broad dismissal, but the fact is, you can get the job done with the tools on this list, and no triangular sponge or foam wedge will beat a good brush.

These seem like a substitute for a drop cloth, but don’t be fooled. They’re too slippery to walk on, and they don’t absorb spilled paint like canvas, which means drips can run off or get tracked around under your shoes.

Paint sprayers are perfect for pros doing an exterior, but those crews’ tools are far more capable than the tools you can get at a hardware store, which are often light-duty, fussy, and hard to use as effectively as a good brush-and-roller setup.

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Everything You Need to Paint a Room | Wirecutter