Had a chat with a 20-year veteran installer that shifted my whole approach

Honestly, I was at a supply shop last Tuesday picking up some tack strip, and an old timer named Rick started talking to me about seam rolling. He said most guys rush that part because they want to get out of the house fast. He told me he spends an extra 3 to 4 minutes per room just going over seams with a heavy roller, even if they look flat. Ngl, I always thought that was overkill, but after trying it on a 12x15 bedroom yesterday, the seams disappeared way better than before. Has anyone else got a small tweak like that from a random conversation that actually made a difference?

2 comments

2 Comments

stella_lee1mo ago

Hang on, Rick told you 3 to 4 extra minutes? That's the part that got me. I've been doing this 15 years and I always thought seam rolling was basically just pressing it down once with your knee or a hand roller. I never considered timing it, let alone adding a whole 4 minutes. That's basically an extra smoke break worth of work per room. But if the seams are actually disappearing, I guess I'm the one who's been wrong this whole time.

thompson.christopher1mo ago

Man, same thing happened to me a few years back. I used to just give it one good roll and call it done until I had a callback on a job where the seams kept ghosting through after the paint dried. Now I do a second pass after about two minutes, and yeah it adds time, but I haven't had a single complaint since. It's one of those things where you don't realize you're doing it wrong until someone points it out, but once you see the difference, you can't go back.