Rollers: Use heavily napped roller sleeves for textured surfaces, and shorter-napped sleeves for smooth walls. Buy a sleeve with a fiberglass core, and it will last for many jobs. You can get a sleeve with a cardboard core, but get more than one, as they fall apart after a wall or two.

2torial #0494: Learn2 Paint a Room (Continued) Protect the room   Professionals use cloth dropclothes because they're reusable and they absorb paint spills--there's no slipping and sliding on wet, unabsorbed paint. Many self-painters buy those thin plastic dropcloths which will be with us for the next three to six centuries. Save some money (and the planet)--use old bed sheets instead, if you don't want to buy new dropcloths. If you must buy the plastic kind, get the thicker variety (3-4 millimeters) for the floors, and the thinner variety (.5-2 mm) for draping over furniture. Just cover everything!   Remove all of the furniture and carpeting that you can. After laying a dropcloth on the floor, move the remaining items into the center of the room. Drape them with other dropcloths, and tape down any loose flaps where paint mist might enter.   Cover the floor completely. A fine mist of paint will adhere to any exposed surfaces. Protect the edges of the floor by using strips of wide masking tape. These will cover the remaining gap between the wall and the dropcloth.   For wall-to-wall carpeting: Slide a thin piece of cardboard between the baseboard and the carpet to protect it when painting the baseboards. For better handling, use a plastic paint shield instead of the cardboard.   Remove the faceplates of electrical outlets and lightswitches before beginning. If you have an overhead fixture, remove its cover also to avoid getting paint on it. Use masking tape to protect doorknobs and locks.   For the best results, protect the trim. These are the wooden pieces that surround the doors and windows, and in some homes, outline the walls and ceilings. Protect the trim by taping it where it meets the wall (press tape in place with a putty knife for a good seal). After the final coat of wall paint dries, you'll remove the tape and paint the trim. If the trim is being painted for the first time (i.e is raw lumber), don't protect it. Instead, cover it with the primer when painting the first coat. Step 4