Painting Interior Walls: How to Get a Flawless Finish
Interior walls are the most unforgiving surface in the house to paint. They sit at eye level, they catch daylight at raking angles that show every roller mark and filled patch, and everyone who visits looks straight at them. The difference between a wall that looks sprayed-on smooth and one that looks patchy is almost never the paint — it is what happened before the lid came off. Here is the process, in the order it should happen.
Preparation decides the result
Clear, protect, wash
Furniture out or into the middle of the room under sheets, floors covered, outlet covers off. Walls collect more grime than they show — kitchens hold cooking film, hallways hold hand marks, and paint will not bond properly to either. A wash with sugar soap and a rinse is ten minutes per wall that pays for itself.
Fill, sand, spot-seal
Cracks get raked out and filled, nail pops get set and skimmed, dents get filled and sanded flat. Filled patches and any bare plaster then need a sealer or primer, because porous patches drink the topcoat and show as dull spots through the finished wall — the classic sign of a rushed job. In Prahran's older homes there is often more of this stage than expected: settlement cracks, layers of old paint, and here and there old distempered surfaces that need the right sealer before modern paint will hold at all.
The order of work
Ceiling first, then walls, then trim. Ceiling spatter falls on unpainted walls rather than finished ones, and cutting a crisp line where the wall meets the skirting is easier when the trim goes last in enamel. Within each wall, cut in the edges with a brush first — corners, cornice line, around frames and outlets — then roll the field while the cut-in is still workable, so the brushed border blends into the rolled texture instead of showing as a picture-frame halo.
Rolling technique that avoids stripes
Use a decent microfibre roller cover, load it properly, and work in overlapping vertical strokes a metre or so wide, keeping a wet edge as you move along the wall. Stopping mid-wall for a break leaves a lap mark that no third coat quite removes — finish the wall you started. Two coats is the standard, and dramatic colour changes may want a tinted undercoat rather than hoping a third topcoat covers.
Choosing the sheen
Colour gets all the attention, but sheen decides how the wall lives. Flat and matt finishes hide surface imperfections and suit older, less-than-perfect walls; low-sheen washes better and is the usual choice for living areas; semi-gloss belongs on trim, not walls. In a period home with walls that have seen a century of settlement, matt is doing you a favour.
When it is worth calling a professional
A sound modern wall in a spare room is a reasonable weekend job. High ceilings, stairwells, heavily cracked or previously distempered plaster, and rooms with detailed cornices are where the preparation knowledge and the scaffold earn their money — and where a professional finish visibly differs. Either way, the rule does not change: the paint is the last ten per cent, and the wall you see is the preparation you paid for.