How to Bag a Room

One of the tricks of minimizing mess when hopping a ceiling is called bagging a room. What this means essentially is that you cover everything in the room with a sheet of painter's plastic except the ceiling.

The best way to do it is to use blue painter's tape around the edges of the wall and attach the plastic to the tape at the seam where the wall meets the ceiling. Anytime you use blue painter's tape, pay the extra money to get the best tape. My recommendation is to buy the white core (not the orange core) 3M painter's tape. It has ridges in the tape that give it added durability over the cheaper brands.

Bagging a room

Start in a corner of the room where the door is, with the tape in one hand and the edge of the plastic in the other. Press the top of the tape against the wall at the ceiling seam and once it adheres, slide the plastic underneath the bottom ½ of the tape and press the tape to the plastic.

Continue going around the room in one direction. If you need to rip the tape to come off a ladder, be sure to start the next piece of tape on top of the old section, covering over the old tape first by an inch or two, then continuing to apply the tape evenly at the seam, pressing hard enough to make sure it sticks and then attaching the plastic to the bottom half of the tape. When you get to where you started, continue for a few more feet, going over what you did the first time, so that when the plastic drapes it completely covers the opening of the doorway.

Ceiling fans and chandeliers or large lights can be bagged in this manner as well. Small lights can be covered with just the painter's tape. Be sure to completely cover them and make sure your tape line is straight whenever it meets the ceiling. Uneven taping that doesn't meet the ceiling line will look sloppy after the hop is applied. Take care in doing this step.

Unbag the room

After hopping the room, when the hop is still wet, remove the bag by starting where you ended, and carefully pulling the tape in the opposite direction of how you laid it. Because you took care overlapping the tape when you laid it down, it should come off in one even movement as you make your way around the room.

Pull tape and bagging from lighting fixtures and fans, and roll up into a ball and put in a plastic bag so the wet hop doesn't get on anything else. Allow the room to dry.

Sources:

Bob the Painter