While novice painters will have better control painting with a brush than a roller, rollers do cover walls and ceiling surfaces at least 50% faster than a brush. Painting with a roller will require more paint than painting with a brush and as with any tool, both prior practice and the quality of the tool will determine the outcome.

Tools
Buy a sturdy roller frame with a threaded hollow plastic or wooden handle that can receive an extension pole for painting ceilings and high walls. The metal rib or cage-style frame is preferable over the solid solid-metal frame because it will accept the roller sleeve easily, and be less likely to stick to the sleeve when it’s time for clean up. Likewise, avoid frames that require screws or wing nuts to hold on the roller sleeve—these are impossible to release when encrusted with paint.

For safety and efficiency, skip the roller tray and opt for a five gallon bucket with a roller screen or grid hanging vertically inside. The bucket holds more paint than a tray, is easier to carry than a tray, and harder to step into than a tray.

Rollers for flat surfaces come in widths from four inches to nine inches — but the most common size for interior and exterior surfaces are seven inches to nine inches wide. It is temping to buy inexpensive roller sleeves or covers because they are cheap enough to throw away after every painting project, but low-cost covers do not hold enough paint and require constant re-dipping. Some even shed.

Roller sleeves can be made of lamb’s wool, mohair, polyester, nylon, or polyurethane foam and come in nap or pile of varying lengths. A half-inch nap provides good coverage for smooth surfaces. Rough surfaces need a longer nap.

While natural fibers like mohair or lamb’s wool are best with oil or alkyd paint, they are too absorbent to use with latex paint. Nylon, polyester or a combination of the two works well for latex or water-based paint. Avoid foam rollers because they do not hold paint evenly.

Tip: A quality roller sleeve will have beveled edges, no visible seams, and will quickly go back to its original shape after being squeezed.

Technique
All roller projects will involve some brushwork. Use a two inch wide brush to paint around fixtures and to cut in corners and edges the roller cannot get into or next to. Roll into the wet edge of the brushwork. If the cut in area dries before the roll out, lap marks or ridges will appear in the project.

If the project entails painting both the ceiling and the walls, start with the ceiling. While you would get more hand control by rolling the ceiling from a ladder, for safety’s sake, practice standing on the floor using the roller with a 48 inch extension pole. Find a comfortable grip that allows for control. Many painters like to hold the extension pole with their hands spread 18 inches apart on the handle. Wear a hat and goggles.

Prep the roller before each project. Moisten the roller with water for latex paint and mineral spirits for oil paint. Roll out the excess moisture on a piece of scrap plywood.

Dip half the height of the roller into the paint. Roll it back and forth against the paint screen or grid. Repeat this process several times until the roller is evenly saturated with paint.

Tip: The roller should not drip with paint on the way to the painting surface. Start all roller strokes up and away from you. Roll slowly to avoid spraying the paint outward. Let the paint do the work. Apply only enough pressure to the roller to release and spread the paint. Pushing hard on the roller to get out the last drop of paint makes for uneven coverage and rough surface texture.

Start at the narrow end of the room and paint across the width of the ceiling in 3’ sections. Apply the paint in a zigzag W pattern. Without re-dipping the roller, pass over the pattern lengthwise to smooth the paint over the whole section.

Use an M pattern to paint walls, doing the top half of the wall than the bottom half. Right-handed painters usually move right to left and left-handed painters paint left to right. This ensures that the free hand or shoulder is not touching a wet surface.

Tip: If you must stop before finishing, look for natural transition areas like doorways or windows to avoid lap marks when painting is resumed. A five-gallon bucket with roller screen can be covered with a plastic trash bag during rest breaks. Also, during painting breaks, wrap the roller in a plastic bag and hang it up so the roller does not lose its shape resting on its side.

The cutting in process will leave brush marks that will not match the rollers surface texture. If you are particular, carefully roll as close to inside corners, moldings and the ceiling as possible. Professional painters can get within one inch of edges by rolling the open end of the roller toward the edge. Never use a roller fully loaded with paint for this exacting work. Specialty rollers such as one inch to three inch wide trim or sash rollers or corner rollers with beveled shapes for corners and ceiling borders can be helpful.

Tip: Sliding the sleeve off the roller cage about an inch so it extends past the frame knob helps to get close to tight spaces.

Clean-Up
Start with the roller screen and scrub it with a brush using detergent and water for latex paint. Wearing gloves and eye protection use solvent to remove oil-based paint from the screen. Work in a well-ventilated area. The screen grid must be free of dry paint or the roller in the next project will pick up dry paint flecks.

Roll excess paint off the roller by rolling it on newspapers. (Let the paint dry on the papers away from children and pets then toss them into the trash, not the recycling bin.) Use the semicircular cutout in a painter’s “5in1 tool” to scrape any leftover paint off the roller.

Rub a lather of detergent and warm water into the roller to release latex paint residue. Rinse until the water runs clean. If you are using solvent to clean a roller with oil-based paint on it, wear rubber gloves and eye protection in a well-ventilated area. Put the roller back on the roller frame to dry. Hang the roller frame by the handle so that the roller sleeve dries evenly and retains its shape. Laying a roller sleeve flat to dry will results in a lopsided sleeve which translates into paint ridges in future painting projects. Smooth rolling action actually creates the vacuum that pulls the paint from off the roller spreading it on to the wall or ceiling