An Ultimate Guide To Cut Ins: Paint Straight Lines Like a Pro!

all right today I'm going to be talking about the Art of Doing ceiling cuttings and I'm going to give you some tips and tricks on doing them now I've got um I don't know six or seven videos on doing ceiling cuttings and every single one of them you'll talk about um other tips and tricks and on those videos there's been a lot of questions in the past that I'm going to try to answer in this new video right here doing ceiling cins and I'm going to just talk a little bit about the scenario we have here and how you go about dealing with that now you know every ceiling cut in you do is probably going to be just a little bit different sometimes you're going to have a perfectly 90° angle sometimes you're going to have like um what we call um popcorn ceilings and the popcorn ceilings gets into the 90° angle and makes it really difficult to get a perfectly straight line sometimes you're going to have a wavy ceiling line like this that has some texture in some places and some texture in and not in other places and then how do you go about you know really dealing with that and how do you get perfectly straight cuttings you know when you're dealing with all these different scenarios now I'm going to talk um give you a couple like you know um tips when it comes to where to take your ceiling cut in should you take your ceiling cut up cut in up onto the ceiling the paint or should you Side by coming down below the ceiling now in a case like this there are certain scenarios where you can take and run a beat of cocking you know up into this 90° corner and eliminate some of the texture issues texture problems some of the unevenness in your 90° corner to give you kind of like a better um surface to do your cut ends on that'll give you a little bit more success but as soon as you run a beat of caulking up there the caulking is going to get on this ceiling you're going to have to paint it and then you end up painting the wall too and then you're going to have to wait for the caulking to dry so sometimes it's impractical to do we're not painting the ceilings in here I don't have the ceiling color so if I get any paint on here that becomes a problem so I can't COA these um these 90° Corners so I got to just deal with what I got up there now there was um texture you know up here in the way of the sething cuts and you can see I actually scraped it off with my L bite scraper so some things you can just scrape off and get them out of your way to give you you know a nicer surface to do your cut ends on this scenario we have you know kind of a wavy ceiling that's not perfect we've got Orange Peel textured walls we got a hand textured ceiling and we've got some texture insert C places you know in that ceiling now I'm going to talk about an optical illusion when it comes to doing ceiling cut ends if you do your ceiling cuttings if you bring them down say like an eighth of an inch and not get anything on the wall when you stand back from the wall you're actually looking directly at that line and if that line isn't perfectly straight you're going to see that wave in it this is the illusion that I'm going to be talking about so if you Side by bringing it down you better have your line perfectly straight or you're going to um think your lines are really really crooked they'll actually look more crooked than they really are now if you Side by taking the paint up onto the ceiling a little bit like a 16th of an inch getting it up onto the ceiling the only way you can really see that is by getting up against the wall and looking up if you stand back away from this um the wall which typically people are doing when they're in the room they're walking around the room they're looking at the wall and they can't actually see a wavy line cuz it's actually up on the ceiling so I always teach the new guys that do the cuts for me to actually Side by getting it up on the ceiling a little you'll have a lot more success you people looking at the cut ends will on the optical illusion will be able be a lot straighter so um my recommendation would be just to get it up onto the ceiling a little bit the scenario I've run into right here is um the person that did the cins here did actually do that they got it up onto the ceiling a little bit and I've got to actually cover all that because if I don't if I paint this white that we're painting and this is pretty white pretty similar to this and this brown is left on that ceiling little pieces that brown they're going to see it and it's not going to look very good so you definitely have to Side by getting it up onto the ceiling and actually covering all that other stuff that was left behind of this color right here but it's actually not going to be that bad because this color is similar to this color siding by getting it way up on into the ceiling even maybe like an eighth of an inch it's going to actually look really good and you're going to have you know success here so we got a pretty ideal scenario to deal with so now I'm going to get up here we're going to start doing some cuttings now another question I've had in the past is you know people are asking me you know how come you're not using a flat brush I use an angled sash brush so you can see it's it it's angled so it's cut in an angle there's options where you can use a flat brush I know a lot of people use flat brushes and they don't have a problem getting into the corner with a lot of training you can get into the corner and cut in really well but an angled sash it comes to a point you can get into a corner a lot easier with an angled sash in the angled sash also I like doing my cuttings and I actually draw my line with that point that the angle creates instead of a flat s so it is personal preference of flat angled it really just comes down to what you're comfortable with another thing is what size brush so um you're going to see this is a 3inch angled sash brush I for years probably 12 years of painting um in my career I was using a 2 and 1/2 in Brush and I was comfortable using a 2 and 1/2 but the bigger the brush the more paint it's going to hold the longer the line you're going to be able to draw so a 3-in brush I'm going to be able to stretch my line out a lot faster a lot longer and um the longer I can go without red dipping you know in theory the faster the more efficient you are going to be doing your cut ends if you're just learning sometimes a 2 and 1/2 in Brush uh works better to start doing your cut ends than a 3-in brush and I personally use a premier handmade brushes with all dup filaments they hold paint up better um and they clean up a lot faster and they hold their stiffness a lot longer so a premier mon talk or Premier Brooke that's what I do my cins with I've tested a lot of rushes over the years and they work the best for me and once again if you're a professional painter a lot of this is Prof uh personal preference now let's get on to doing some cins and see if I can give you some tips and tricks you know how about go doing this and you know I'm going to start off right here and I'm right-handed and if I was to start off on on the right side of the wall it's more difficult to be in a right-handed person to work my way this way so I always start I'm right-handed I'm going to start on the left side of the wall and work my way down um to the opposite corner and I'll just start one or I'll start one corner I'll work my way out as far as I can reach and then I'll come back and work my way down the wall this is kind of repetitive if you've walked my other videos but if you don't have a lot of experience cutting in holding your breath um we'll give you a steadier hand we'll give you a straighter line people kind of laugh and they say well don't pass out on the ladder yeah you know hold your breath do your cut in and then breathe again so here we go um and I still to this day I do you know at times I'm trying to get I'm using a dark like a black and I got a white ceiling I will hold my breath and then draw my line and then take a breath but I'm going to load up my brush and I'm going to TU um this is something I haven't touched on in my other um cut in videos in the past is loading your brush up my brush is already loaded up with paint it's got a lot of paint in it if your brush is um doesn't have any paint in it and you start doing your cins your cins are going to be light for a while and you're going to have to go back and touch them up so I usually try to load my brush someplace um down lower get it all loaded up with paint and then get up and start doing my cut ends once it's loaded up now I'm just going to dip my brush in I always dip it in just like maybe a/ inch into paint tap it on the side so it don't drip I'm going to bring my brush up and I teach like the same concept when I'm using a roller as long as this thing is twisting you're never going to drip and spill paint and the one thing that you'll get paint splatters and stuff if you take load your brush and then bring it up here and I'm going to fling paint away from my brush as I'm dragging it so I tried to like subconsciously move my brush to my Surface substrate wherever I'm painting and twist it so I'm going to get it up I'm just going to lay it down I'm going to use the tip of my filaments to actually draw my line I'm going to draw my line as far out till it starts to unload with paint and I'm going to come back and draw the opposite direction and then I got my line now I'm going to try to take my line up onto the ceiling enough where I can cut cover the previous person's pain so I'm going to get it up begin drawing it starts to unload come back and draw my line again just like that and I'll come back just um fill in some light spots just like that fill it in make sure I've got everything up top and you can check come back and do touchups you'll hit it again if you miss I'm trying to cover that dark paint from the previous paint job and then I'm going to come back and then back roll it now you know a lot of people just use a brush and they're just going to brush this and leave it and I want to talk a little bit about that and why I back roll so I've just left brush Strokes on here and it lays out the paint one way I'm going to come back and roll the Wall come up here I'm going to get about you know this far from the ceiling there's going to be brush Strokes left that direction um roller marks left this direction there's a different texture between the brush stroke and the roller which stipples it brush stroke stippling you're going to see a a color difference in the paint if you're using a really dark color or if you're using low gray paints higher end paints and what we call that line that you see it'll be a Halo so we don't want to um Halo it so I'm going to stipple it using a roller I'm going to stipple as close as I can to that ceiling now that texture left by the roller will match the texture on the wall wall and the color difference won't be any different I can't get all the way up there but at least I got about that close it eliminated most of the breast rows so that's why I actually back roll it with a roller because you literally will have a color difference a Sheen difference and a texture difference if you don't do that I'm going to come back now I did my line in that direction I'm going to come up put my tip of my brush up against the ceiling run it out come back feel in anything didn't fill in with the brush load up my brush I come One Direction come back the other direction f it in load up my brush watching that I'm covering up the previous painter and I'm putting it up like onto the ceiling about a 16th of an inch once again the these are from the camera from that angle right there it may appear to you like it's a perfectly you know 90° Corner that smooth and flat it's not there's a lot of texture differences there's chunks and stuff there's bumps there's a bunch of things to navigate through to get your line to look straight now here's another thing with cut ends that I like 4-in roller that has the roller rolled over the end now my corner cut in right here and I can do my my corner cutting while I'm on the ladder finish that up and my corner cutting is done that fast just like that going to come back as far as I can reach you can see right here I've got quite a bit bumps and stuff to deal and navigate I'm letting my brush navigate its way over those bumps come back just like that now I've gone as far as I can on the ladder and now I'm going to move over now this right here one code so I'm going to our first first coat we keep it away from all of our cut ends our window trim baseboards and ceilings a little bit away cuz this is our first coat we always two coat our walls that's pretty common from a professional painter standpoint second coat we're going to do our all our cut in ceiling cuttings trim cutins baseboard cuttings come back and do our second coat roll up as high as we can so we're going to eliminate this possible large Halo right here and this the texture is running this way from the nap the roller is going to come up as high as we can without touching the ceiling and it's going to eliminate it that direction and make it all consistent from ceiling to wall do I let my cut ends dry before I come back and um roll this wall if you're working just one person you know a lot of times that's not practical this paint up here it's actually really hot in this room right now and this is going to dry extremely fast I can do one wall at a time by the time I can come back and roll over this what happens is if this begins to dry Begins the drying process over and you come up and roll over it and come back down it's actually going to pull the paint and it's going to cause it to stipple really bad so if it's really hot and you can't come over this and roll over it which is ideal when this is actually wet it needs to be still 100% wet before you roll over it or it's going to cause really really bad problems now if this is a really dark color really need to do that you really need to work one roll at one wall at a time and it's ideal to have somebody working right behind you and rolling over this and working as a team uh as a light color and this is a really high-end paint that I'm using and I have experienced using it even with a dark color it doesn't Halo it touches up absolutely amazing so I'm comfortable letting this dry and not rolling over it while it's wet I've used Paints in the past were even a lower end gray lower end paints a darker color like a dark chocolate Brown even rolling over this while it was wet I still could see the Halo really bad so if you're on really concerned if you got like dark accent colors I highly recommend you use a really high-end paint one of the paints that I use is uh bear U bear Dynasty I've had experience with it with dark colors accent colors no haloing touches up absolutely amazing so now I'm coming back here still wet I'm going to can change this overlap come up put my paint up I work it up into the corner if it starts to run out really fast G to just come back the opposite direction as soon as the the brush runs out of paint I'll come back the opposite direction come back so just to go back over just the reason why I like an angled sash brush is I draw my cut in with that point of the brush and you can't like drag it out as far as the flat sash brush but that point works really well for navigating around bumps and chunks and texture imperfections and stuff really really well just load it up I tap it up there make sure like I come out of the bucket if you can't rotate it if you just lift it up you're less likely to drip don't drag it up in this direction lift it up take it to my cut in come back opposite direction fill it all in there's anything I miss hit that just like that so this is another question I get asked like quite a bit that I want to address right here I don't think I've ever address it in um a video before on Cut ends now if I'm two coating my walls and I'm one coating my cut ends well what if I get light spots do I two coat my cut ends all this I'm going to roll all the way up here as high as I can I'm when I roll my walls I'm going to come up about this far and I've got some tips and tricks on how you actually do that and consistently get that close now I can see already you know there's some light areas right here and I always go back when everything's dry that's the very last thing I do I'll go back and touch up my cut ends there'll only be certain spots that need to be touched up and I don't touch them up in the same direction I just come back and touch them up going down and I'll show you what that looks like on the opposite side of the room here where the walls are dry and I got a touch-up cut ends but I just touchup I don't recut in everything so it goes like extremely fast and that's where if you use a low-end paint that doesn't cover very well you're going to have touch-ups all over the room but if you use a high-end paint that covers well and some of the paints say they're one coat paints and I have used a one coat paint before they did cins in a room didn't have to touch up anything there's this is a white usually whites um don't cover nearly as well it's a white going over dark there be a few c ends it's very simple fast to go back and touch them up so see now when I'm doing my ceiling cins when I got small areas like this to do I'm going to cut in top the door here and then I'm going to fill this in with my roller and I don't want to brush the top of this so all the walls are stippled with paint so I'm going to stipple them with the roller now once again I want to address the type of walls we have here you have to understand this is Orange Peel texture this is a probably the most common texture we see in Idaho it's just sprayed on texture um very forgiving hides a lot of stuff it's very common for orange peel hand texture on the ceilings and so it's okay to like roll your walls because you're not actually adding texture there's already texture to it if these are smooth walls a level five finish like they're completely smooth we're going to be painting differently so um this is a technique what what I'm showing you is taking in consideration these are orange peel walls so I'm going to get up into this corner you can see the point of the brush gets into the corner easily it goes right into the corner now I can take off from that corner there was paint pretty high on the ceiling I'm siding by taking it up on the ceiling pretty high and to come back fill it all in hit it down the side fill this in I come back show you how easy it is to get in the corner just put it up into the corner get the paint where you want it drag it back roll it get as close to the ceiling as I can without touching the ceiling lot so that's going to be how comfortable you are cuz one thing is is you don't want to touch the ceiling you see um the previous painters touched it right there and maybe Dawn dish soap and water will'll take it off cuz it is a gloss ceiling it might wash it off even though it's been on there for quite a while so I'm going to come over here I'm going to finish up my cut ends in this Direction come back and you can see I can I'll show you how like when I'm really moving if I'm not videoing show you how fast I move I'll just move this quick get out filled in I'll even do it multiple times and to come back I got to hit it again I'll come back so that's typically how fast I'll be moving you know doing my cut ends here load this up fill this in what it looks like I got cut ends here that I'm going to be working with coming down here I'm working my brush behind this trim right here and then begin working my way down nobody can see the back side of this trim so I'm going to get my brush in here I'm going to work it up underneath here till it gets the bottom of the trim and then begin working down get that back side done…