There, you can kind of see this gap right here. It’s really hard to fill that with caulking without spreading it on top of the countertop and not getting it all over the wall. I’m going to show you how you can go ahead and caulk what we call taping and make it perfect.
What you’re going to need for this is your tape. You need a little putty knife for cutting straight edges on the tape. You’re going to need your caulking non-siliconized if you can paintable, and then a wet rag.
So the first step I’m going to show you is always start at one end and then overlap going another way. And then, carry on until you finish. What I do is I always stay about a millimeter or two — depending on the size of the gap — away from the wall. Just like that. You see how it’s got that little tiny of gap showing. Now, when I come to a corner, this is where you use that little putty
knife — because it’s got a really 90-degree-angle edge.
Whenever I pull my tape, I always rip it with a little bit extra so that I can pull that off. What I do is I tack it down right nice and tight to the corner — nice and flat. I, then, grab this carefully, put pressure down, and I cut it and I rip it. That gives it a nice clean straight edge.
So, what you want to do here is you want to put just a little bead of caulking. You don’t want too much — but just enough.
Now, keep in mind if you’re doing this with a different dark color, you might want dark caulking, just to match a little bit better. But really, what I’m doing here is I’m just putting a little bit of caulking, and I’m just going to spread it on so it’s not too much. You see how the caulking actually touches the tape and the wall and fills the gap at the same time.
Now, I’m just going to go ahead and paint that. In roll number one, you get lots of paint on your brush — you see how there’s quite a bit of paint on the end of that brush there. That’s what you want you don’t want on a dry brush. So what you do is always start in the corners. Gently place it in there and then pull it back. Then, unload your brush, and just get that top edge a little bit nice and gentle.
You don’t want to do this too many times — just enough, just once or twice. Start here and just go one way well. I can go both ways but I just don’t want to jam the caulking. You got to move a little bit faster, too, right? Gonna keep going just like that. Nice little fade. You see how that looks — how clean that looks?
It’s taped. It’s caulked. It’s painted, and it’s starting to dry. You don’t want it to dry, you want it to get it while it’s wet. You can see that it’s still wet. So what you want to do is you want to grab this, and you want to pull away.
What I do is I pull away at a 45, see? I illustrate that line, look at that, and then I pull it. I pull it perfectly straight. Look how straight that line is up behind the sink.
So, that’s how you tape your countertop, so that you can get rid of that gap. Caulk it and paint it all in one!
