With old walls, freehand is best. I've tried masking tape but it doesn't seal well on my iregular plaster and the result is much sloppier looking.

We just painted our living room and bedroom and definitely utilized the blue tape. We probably could have done without it in some places but around the hard to reach kitchen molding (we have pretty deep counters) it was a necessity.

oh my gosh... we are in the process of renovating our entire house and I have tried everything!

I hate the tape...usually WAY more issues than it is worth... In my case if it does not bleed... it peels off the trim paint and then I have to fix that.

The sponge that you wipe along the edges is better but, if you are not fast enough when you roll the walls there is a bead of paint all along the outer edge that dries. So when you are done you have a uniform 3-d line 3 inches from every border. arg.

I also purchased an edging roller at home depot that is better... it think the brand is "because woman know" and it works really well, but the supplies for it are pretty pricey.

I have finally settled on the brush method. It is just cheaper and is less hassle.

we recently painted our entire house (we just moved in) and used blue tape throughout. it peeled off the ceiling paint/polyurethane on moldings and didn't offer a good seal with our old plaster walls. i know they have the blue tape now for "delicate" surfaces, but i think its sad that they charge $3 more a roll for tape with less adhesive!

regarding those special applicators - those are useless too! no straight lines there.

and both the boyfriend and i seem to have the shakiest hands on earth when it comes to cutting in haha, so i guess we have no options left!! haha

I just redecorated my studio and I find it quicker and easier to free hand it. Most of the time it also seems to yield better results as I always get bleeding with tape. However on the tricky spots where I didn't have a clear line to follow I ended up using tape and then fixed any splotches freehand.

I just painted my whole house in the last month. The first wall or four done freehand were a hot mess but once I got the hang of it, everything turned out quite beautiful. It just takes practice. I would suggest practicing on piece of furniture you will repaint later or the corners of walls.

every technique has its place.

where there's a bit more of a gap (like where our beams meet our ceiling), the sure-line micro-fiber/velour roller-pad has worked well, and on perfectly smooth/square drywall it can work well. our trim is too shallow to successfully use there.

in most areas, i've simply freehanded the lines, although years of practice and a steady hand make that easier for me than for most. a good brush (and not necessarily an expensive one) is essential, of course. we've been buying a lot of brushes at big-lots (since i tend to trash them sooner than later) and the ones they sell in our area (with blue and gray packaging) are quite nice. we've also found the wooster brushes at lowes are a nice balance of quality and price. of course, purdy brushes are nice, but they're expensive for someone who's hard on tools.

the best we've found in a while is "frog tape" available at lowes and sherwin-williams. it's not as sticky as blue tape and when sealed with a damp rag, the edges don't bleed as much as blue-tape... there's some magic goo at the edges that water activates to help seal the edge. presumably, water from the latex paint would seal it, but we've found 'pre sealing' with the rag works better. virtually no bleed.

fwiw: in my experience, if properly applied painter's tape peels off your paint then you either don't have a good bond/adhesion (lack of proper priming/material incompatibility... which is an issue anyway) or the paint hasn't cured long enough (give it two days). if you're rushing to get a room finished and the paint is still damp, freehand is about the only way to go.

I always paint free hand. The best advice - buy a high quality angled sash brush...they create the best straight edge when painting.

I find friends who are good cutters and let them work their magic, then ply them with alcohol and pizza to keep me company while I do the massive rolling in and around all their fine handiwork.

My husband loves blue tape but I have completely given up on it. Oftentimes it does not come off cleanly, even when I buy the 3M kind. We bought a small-handled angle brush and it is working out fine.

freehand. blue tape doesn't work... ever

Cut in with a brush most of the time, usually when there is no crown. It's super easy so long as you've had some practice before you start. I always tape the baseboards. Some professionals use a 6-in-1 tool to remove the caulking from between the moulding and wall before painting.

Peel the tape off immediately to avoid bleeding. Blue 2" painter's tape can be had at Home Depot for $6 a roll. One roll will for a couple rooms.

I am also in the midst of painting every square inch of my house and have learned blue tape stinks! Freehand all the way. Just need a steady hand, a small brush and don't put too much paint on the brush.

Uggg...don't even mention the blue tape..it ruined my beautiful paint job. I am gonna have to try the 'frog tape'.

I just can't seem to do it freehand. I've tried the sure-line edgers and it works pretty well but doesn't cut in right to the edge. It can also be a little tricky to keep the little wheel clean.

I prefer to use tape. I use a trick I learned off of Apartment Therapy: apply the tape, then "seal" it with paint that is the same color as the trim (usually white). After it dries, paint with the new wall color. This method was the easiest and got me the most perfect lines, but it does require additional time since you have to wait for the trim color to dry.

I tend to be better at both freehand and applying blue tape than most people I know. I think that blue tape has its place -- where the line you're cutting to isn't sharp. I also find it helpful for painting thin window mullions. It just goes so much faster. Also, to get a good result with cutting in, it is super important not to overload your brush. only put pant on about the last inch near the tip. Putting more on there doesn't allow you to paint longer without refilling, it just makes things messier. Most brushes are ruined not by use, but by people dipping the entire bristle area in the paint. As long as you keep the paint away from the base, you can wash them out like new.

1.5" or 2" good quality angled sash brush

Blue tape does not work.
I use the white "Kleen Edge" kind that I used to be able to get at HomeDepot but now can only get at a paint store. It's quite pricey, but works very well.

This post is good timing! We've been working on painting our entire house (still a long way to go) and painting has become quite frustrating for us. We were using green froggy brand tape, and it always seemed more hassle than the worth. Crisp lines were rare, they'd bleed over and I'd spent a lot of time touching up. We just painted our hallway and the store we were buying paint from didn't have the froggy brand so we went with the blue stuff. That was even worse than the green tape. It kept ripping as we'd peel it off the baseboards and there are many places where we had to use tweezers to get the tape off of the sharp edges between the baseboards and the walls. For the ceiling I decided to use an edger that we had bought before but was afraid to use. It made nice clean lines but the line isn't quite at the ceiling. You can see a small strip of white right below the ceiling. :( I've decided that small strip of white which at least is a sharp straight line is better than the mess that the tape would have left. I did find a trick to using an edger. Don't dip the edger into paint, use a paint brush to apply the paint to the edger pad. This keeps the edges of the edger and the guard/rollers clean, allows you to control how much paint is on the pad and I had no problems with drippage. For our next room I think I'm ready to ditch the tape all together (eep, scary) and edge and try my hand at free-hand. It takes twice as long to tape as the actual painting and it doesn't seem to work well.

On ceilings, Freehand, plus a finish where needed with a tiny, half inch, flat artist's brush (I just buy the cheap ones meant for kid's art projects) to even out bumps or jags.

On windows/trim a painter taught me to run up the side of the trim in the wall color and just to the visible surface of the trim in trim color (no cutting in!). It looks great, much cleaner. I just use tape on the inside of window frames, basically.

Freehand.

I've had the best luck with tape along walls and trim, but I usually have to freehand some spots accidentally covered by the tape and alsoalong the ceiling. I don't have much of a problem with bleeding... maybe I'm too stingy with the paint? Regardless, the tape method worked great for me when I spent a week renovating my new home purchase in June.

2 1/2" brush freehanded is the only way to go for me.
My process is paint the trim first (baseboards and door jams) and let them dry. Then using Kleenedge tape only tape off the baseboards and the sides of the casing. Then cut your paint onto the tape, don't goop it with a full brush. Then remove the tape right away, don't let it dry or else you'll peel the paint off the wall and possibly your baseboard. For ceilings cut freehand as pads can leave runs down your walls and ding up your ceiling. I've only taped ceilings when it was a flat ceiling (no texture) and it was painted. It allows for a crisp line between the two colors. Mind you that depended on if the drywallers did a good job of keeping the corners square.

Cutting in freehand seems to always take a long time for me but then again, I save time by not having to apply any painter's tape because my cutting is very meticulous.

The pads have been a disaster with me. If paint accidentally gets on the roller wheels then it's a nightmare.

The only thing I use the tape for is as a splatter guard on baseboards when rolling.
If you make a mistake doing it by hand, you can wipe paint off with a rag. Or, if it's on glass, a razor will scrape off the dry paint. So much faster than taping an entire room.
I painted for a company during my summers from college, so I guess I'm semi pro at this..

i painted all of my last house - some rooms twice, and i am now in the middle of painting a new house. through some trial and error, i have found that using painters tape on trim is a must - but i NEVER use it on the ceiling. along the ceiling i have had pretty good results with those foam edge rollers. you just have keep a wet edge, and be careful not to get any paint on the wheels.

I'm a cutter-inner. I have a pretty steady hand and find it way faster than rolling out alllllll that tape. I've only just started cutting in, though; I was an avid tape-user in the past. It always peeled off chunks of my paint and/or bled.

That said, I do use some tape around tricky spots.

Suzee -

I'm curious how this trim-painting method ends up looking. You don't happen to have any pictures do you? It sounds *much* easier, and if it looks good, I might have to give it a go when I paint the ENTIRE HOUSE over the next 2 weeks...

I always prefered the brush, but my walls have this annoying texture that totally prevents a straight line using any method. I painted one wall and the ceiling black in my bedroom last weekend and ended up getting black duct tape and running it along the edges after failing at every other method. It actually looks ok, but I don't know what I should do for the walls that don't have matching duct tape, lol. Guess I'll just keep saving for crown molding...

We cut in freehand - its easier with our old, uneven plaster walls, and really, it doesn't take all that long.

In our house, I tape to protect the woodwork (which is original finish shellac and then cut it with an edging brush. The tape is to protect the majority of the woodwork, but because of the old plaster walls, I still have to freehand to fill in all the nooks and crannies. Since some previous owner was the "sloppiest painter of all time" we have been working to clean off all of their mistakes and not add our own, hence the tape to help keep things generally tidy.

I almost murdered my husband when I saw that he freehanded the ceiling in the kids' rooms of our new house - he is NOT the steadiest hand, and it looked horrible. I made him go back over it with an edger, and it looks better, but it's not the crisp line the perfectionist in me craves. If I wasn't 7 months pregnant, I would have snatched that brush out of his hand in a second and climbed up that ladder myself. Poor husband.

We're on to the trim now and planning on the method Bethanyboo describes. Since both rooms are relatively rich colors, a nice crisp line on the trim is a must. There's no rule against me taping, so I'm all over it.

I have some awkward angles and use tape to protect trim there, but most of the time i just cut in. I have a steady hand but I think it is really because I am lazy! Getting the tape right is tricky.
On windows I paint onto the glass and scrape off when dry - gives a good seal and a perfect line. I also run the wall colour up to the face of the trim - I think it integrates it better.

Also what about having the trim the same colour as the walls? I like that look.

Good, direct light helps immensely. If you have access to work lights, use 'em! They make the room hot, though, so up the ac or get a good fan. It's worth it.

I just have to say I'm loving all the attention on AT to painting interiors properly. I am one of those challenged people for whom nothing in this area comes intuitively - but I try to do stuff, anyway! So thanks for all of the tips.

I tried using one of those special applicators, and the sponge kept falling off and I got paint all over my hands and on the drop cloth. I quit after the 3rd time it fell. :( I've had a lot of luck with the 3M blue tape - but my house was built in 2003. :)

2" sash brush is the way to go...i gave up on tape after the first room

It's impossible to use the tape on popcorn ceilings.
I use tape around certain things like baseboard heaters, doorknobs, thermostats and built-in cabinets - then cut in using the paint pads. They're perfect for cutting in, rarely drip, and are much, much faster for impatient people like me with shaky hands...
...they also work great for going around outlets, switches too (after removing the switchplates, of course)

I am working on a showhouse and just painted horizontal stripes on 15 ft tall walls. Not a fast job! I hate the blue tape but would never attempt that many stripes freehand so I tried the frog tape. Let me just say that this stuff has changed my life!! I paint all the time and FINALLY someone has made a tape that works just as beautifully as the commercial shows! It has a polymer edge that activates when latex paint hits it (apparently it doesn't work with oils) and it really does not allow ANY paint to seep through. I will never buy the blue tape again.

freehand is the only way to go. Practice makes perfect.

My mom taught me early on the wondrousness that is freehanding it. Really all you need is a decent brush and - here's the kicker - a damp rag to wipe off the excess when you screw up.

I've also discovered in my travels that basic white primer is similar, if not equal to, basic white ceiling popcorn. That definitely comes in handy.

Does anyone have any suggestions for covering up chips that have already been touched up (by landlord) that still show the outline of the original chip? I've NEVER painted and I plan on becoming an expert thanks to all you.

My wife is an awesome painter. Her method is freehand. She only uses a high-quality ($10) angled brush, which is an absolute necessity for a perfect line. She also edges out the room first with a generous amount of paint, then fills in the walls with a roller. If you're going freehand, do not skimp on the brush...it's the key to a great job!

@db51 - to cover up chips, you could apply a thin layer of spackle over the chip to match the level of the surrounding old paint. Once you sand it, the chipped area disappears. I've done that on many walls and it looks great. Just make sure you prime before painting.

"I've also discovered in my travels that basic white primer is similar, if not equal to, basic white ceiling popcorn."

That's brilliant!
(Have I mentioned what a pain it is to paint a popcorn ceiling?
Hint: Uber-nappy roller is a MUST!)

My mom is really good at free handing it, but she's an artist. I've used that edger before with some success. The blue tape is terrible.

Suzee, the painter that taught you that SUCKS and I HATE him.

There *is* a right way to do things and a wrong way to do them. For example, when painting a door different colors on different sides, which edges get painted which colors....

Trim should be painted trim colors on the edge, not wall colors.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the chips are on kitchen cabinets and they are painted with the shiny-ish type of paint. Still spackle? Thanks!

Where were you guys three weeks ago? I second everything Nepthys said, from the bleeding to the ripping to the tweezing around door jambs - ugh. We have only one room left; I hope I can convince my husband to go freehand.

@Tricia Rose, I'm not a huge fan of painting the trim the same as the wall color. My dad recently did a blue room that way in their home and I think it looks like one of those optical illusion rooms in one of our nation's Mystery Spots. But he digs it, so you're not alone in liking it.

And @tequilared, solidarity in your "husband-won't let me paint because I'm pregnant but he's not doing it the way I'd prefer" situation. It's quite the nail biter.

Buy a 1" synthetic bristle artist's watercolor brush from your local art supply store. Make up a batch of watered down paint, about 1 part water to 3-4 parts paint.

The bristles hold less paint, the artist's brush is more accurate, and the watered down paint doesn't bead up or leave a blob. The watered down paint allows you to paint faster which almost makes up for the smaller stripe. Plus I've found the artist's brush cleans more easily.

I have tried everything. The problem for me with tape is when you have to do a lot of coats then sometimes there is a weird paint groove when the tape is removed. The flat edger things don't seem to lay a thick enough layer of paint. So I tried a short-handled angle cut 2" brush and that worked great. Just practice a bit to get your wrist loose and your confidence up. Just make sure to clean it and dry it properly to preserve the nice angle.

I've tried all three ways and prefer freehand. The tape doesn't work well on textured walls (which I have), and I don't really trust myself with the applicator thingie. Freehand takes some control but it's also kind of fun.

I'm quite good at cutting in for the first three walls of a room. As I see the end in sight, I find myself rushing, and that's were I start to make little sloppy mistakes.

I've had wonderful success with the blue tape--maybe because I'm so obsessively precise when I apply it? But you guys must have steadier hands than I--I inevitably screw up free-hand edging. My hand just spazzes and the results are worse than any minor bleed.

My husband and I have been painting our whole 1914 home and have tried everything at this point. We've decided that, especially with our old walls, cutting in is the best method for us - nice angled brushes are a must! The only place we've used blue tape is along our freshly sanded wood floors. Nothing's perfect, but it's coming along well.
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I love the crisp lines of tape, and use an artist's brush to quickly touch up any bleed through. I usually paint the walls first and slop over onto the trim. Then I tape the walls, and paint the trim, removing the tape before the paint completely dries. Then I use the artist's brush to touch up any place the trim paint bled under the tape.

I used to paint scenery for a local theatre and one tip I can suggest that hasn't been listed yet: when you freehand cut-in areas, the way you hold your brush makes a big difference. Don't hold it by the handle, (say what???) instead hold the brush at the ferrule which is the metal band that connects the brush to the handle. This way you are in better control of the application because your hand is closer to the surface. Imagine trying to write your name on a paper if you were holding a pencil by its eraser, it would look like preschooler handwriting.

I'm a freehander-- tape is always a disaster for me and the funny tools don't work. Just take your time and choke up on the brush-- oh, and get a very nice, high-quality brush.

I use a brush - the only thing I use painter's tape for is to mask illustration boards when I'm doing drawings.

Brush and a damp paper towel to soak up any oops moments.

I much prefer to freehand it as my walls and ceilings aren't even nor are they level. I tried those edger trimmer pad things and didn't like them. Give me a GOOD paint brush with good bristles and a nice chisel edge and I'm happy. It takes patience and a steady hand but it's worth it. Also using a palette knife to put up in the edge near the ceiling helps if your not sure about going it completely alone.

Ultimately, I'm a firm believer in those flat, sponge-things that glide alone the edge. But like a reader already mentioned, you DO have to be quick about painting the rest of the wall or otherwise you get big beads of paint that drip from it.