Uneven Wall Paint Color and How to Fix it

Uneven wall paint color between rolled and brushed on paint can be a huge disappointment. What I learned about it and how to fix it without repainting.

Uneven wall paint color can put a real damper on your excitement when painting a room in a fresh new color.

We have been redoing a whole wing of our house for the last few weeks – taking down large built ins, removing popcorn ceiling, skim coating walls and repainting them.

To start painting, we started with the room that needed the least help – the playroom. The walls had been freshly skim coated and we had 2 coats of white primer on it already. We picked a gorgeous gray-blue called Light Drizzle by Behr and got down to painting.

I cut in all the edges and corners and the husband rolled.

We were so excited to finally have one room done and checked off the list.

But guess what!

This happened.

The rolled paint looked lighter than the brushed on paint….

How is that possible? This has never happened before! Even when I painted my moody dark blue wall!

We thought it was the thickness of the coat. The brushed on paint was thicker than the rolled paint and decided to roll on another coat.

No change!

What causes uneven wall paint color

I turned to ask google about it. There was so much conflicting information on it! and this is what I found.

But here is what I found –

• It’s called picture framing or hatbanding.
• Apparently, it happens sometimes… to a lucky few (yes being sarcastic there)
• It happens with certain grays and blues. But no one really knows why.
• When the paint isn’t mixed well.

I even asked about it on my Facebook page. Check out the conversation.

This article by Sherwin Williams is pretty nice if you want to learn more about it.

How to fix picture framing or hatbanding-

Once again, there was a huge amount of conflicting information out there ranging from just let it dry a few weeks and the difference will disappear to repaint it and make sure you use a tinted primer or simply keep adding coats till the difference disappears.

well… first – we didn’t have time to wait 3-4 weeks and then realize we had to repaint the whole room.

And second, we really didn’t want to start from scratch and repaint the whole room and or even pick a new color! We still had 2 more rooms, 3 bathrooms and a hallway to paint.

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How we fixed the uneven wall paint color problem –

We realized that every time we went over the brushed on paint with the roller, it turned lighter!

Weird! But it was happening.

The only difference between the two painted areas was the texture of how the paint was applied.

So we decided to recreate the same texture as a roller for the corners.

Here is what we used for it –

• 4″ roller frame
• roller cover with same nap as your large roller. 3/8″ in my case
• Foam brush

It was so simple and easy and it worked!!

It took me exactly 1 hour to go around the edges and fix the problem! Watch the video of how I did that!

Now, you can’t even see the difference!

So finally, what caused it… no clue but this helped fix it without having to repaint the entire room and I am thankful for that.

If you had a similar issue, I would love to know how you fixed it! Or if you know what caused it, I would love to know!

Alright then, I will be painting the remaining rooms and be praying this doesn’t happen again…

I don’t have any pretty pictures of rooms to show you right now but will have some very soon! Until then take a look at some pretty painted rooms and furniture!

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August Challenge: Paint Changes Everything

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