Patchy pillar in living room after attempted paint job

[MasterMark]

After moving/changing some wall lights in my living room, they were a bunch of holes in one section, and lots of scuff marks, so thought I'd give a go at painting a "pillar" that comes out into the living room with a roller on an extending pole. It's a tall ceiling (3.20m) and the pillar is about 40cm wide, ish.

As you can see from the photo, I've made a total hash of it with 2 coats. Front on it looks ok, from the side it's incredibly patchy (reality is worse than it looks in the photo, very dull light when i took the pic).

It's my first attempt at using a roller (Harris pile, 7 inch wide). I've watched a few videos and the issue is clearly my technique, not the materials! But I'm not sure whether i'm using too much paint, not enough, rolling too much, with too much pressure, whatever.

I guess it's impossible for anyone to say what I'm doing wrong. So I guess the question is: I'd like to give it one more go to see if my technique has miraculously improved. Assuming it hasn't, just want to make sure that continuing to add layers isn't going to make it harder (and therefore more expensive) for a pro to come in and sort it out?!

Any advice would be appreciated!

 

[daggermark]

There's a lot of variables here. It is often difficult to tell from photos whether its inconsistent paint or whether the texture / suction of the underlying surface is inconsistent. It is always worse on walls perpendicular to a light source as they 'catch' every little imperfection. Was this wall heavily filled? If so, did you spot-prime the filler?

If I was going to give it one more go, I'd firstly give it a sand with some 180 grit. Don't go mad, just take the sheen off a bit. Then hoover and wipe it down with a damp cloth to get rid of the dust. One possibility is that the paint is drying out too quick - what brand is it? It is possible to water down emulsion (but not much - 5% water max). With rolling I tend to get the roller damp (not wet), then really load it up. First task is to get the paint onto the wall. Then its about "laying off" - long full-height strokes of the un-loaded roller across the painted area to even it out. If the wall is only 16" wide then you only need 3 strokes with a 7" roller, working left to right and overlapping each stroke by about 3".

Bear in mind it might not solve your problem fully. Could be poor quality paint, could be not a great roller sleeve, could be suction/texture problems on areas of filler.

 

[MasterMark]

Thanks, Daggermark, super thorough response! So before I messed around with it myself, it looked great (a proper decorator painted the flat 7 years ago). There's a "matching" pillar on the opposite side of the room, still looks totally fine. The filling I did was just small holes, that I painted over before deciding to do the whole thing, so it's not that. Paint is Dulux Trade Vinyl matt tinted.

I will follow your recommendation and lightly sand the whole pillar before attempting again. When "laying off", should I just go top to bottom, with very light pressure, once and once only, overlapping as you say, so 3 strokes total? I suspect part of my issue is too much up and down, and I've probably not been able to properly distribute the paint evenly to begin with.

Appreciate hard to say, but is one "load-up" of paint on the roller enough for an area of this size? There 3 wires coming out of the middle of the wall where the light fitting goes are also irritating, as they stop me from completing a smooth up and down in the middle.

 

[daggermark]

It depends on the roller and how much paint it can hold but I'd probably load up the roller twice for an area that size if I was using my normal Purdy sleeves. You need to make sure you are really covering the previous coat with solid colour initially before the laying-off. With a thick-pile roller probably once would be enough. On the right side of your photo particularly it looks to me a bit like the top coat is not 'solid' and some of the previous coat is showing through.

I lay off top-to-bottom normally yes. You can either do it without removing the roller at all as if you were drawing a series of "N" shapes across the wall, or do it in 3 separate vertical strokes each starting at the top. Have a look at this video around 2 minutes in

 

[MasterMark]

Brilliant, thanks! I reckon I haven't been loading it with enough paint for starters. And ironically that was one of the videos I looked at. Thanks again, will give it another bash!