Lay Off Each Rolled Section in One Direction With Half-Overlap Passes

The Problem

Roll a section of wall and look closely: there's visibly more paint where the loaded roller first landed than where it finished spreading. Leave it that way and the uneven film dries into the squiggly lines and streaks that make a wall look DIY-rolled instead of painted.

The Technique

The fix is a separate finishing pass — laying off — after the paint is on:

1. Apply the paint to the section the way you normally would.
2. Then, without reloading, go back over the whole section with light passes: top to bottom, every pass in the same direction.
3. Overlap each pass 50% onto the previous one.

The laying-off pass redistributes the film so every part of the section carries the same amount of paint, moving in the same direction. Even film, even sheen, no lines.