Painting tarps, more commonly known as drop cloths, are one of those unglamorous essentials that are needed to insure that any painting project comes out right. Without them, not only does your paint get applied where you want, but you get the bonus of having it apply itself all kinds of places you don’t want.
Have you ever looked at the walkways, patio, or porch around a house and seen a dazzling selection of colored paint drips near the wall? That’s the unmistakable evidence of painters who don’t believe in using drop cloths. It’s even worse when that happens inside the house, because then the victims are furniture and carpeting. Those are much harder to clean and much more costly to replace.
While it is possible to paint with a brush, without every getting a drip on the floor, it’s impossible to paint with a paint sprayer or roller without drips, splatter and overspray. Even with a brush, there’s always the chance that you’re going to drip, no matter how careful you are.
If you are going to buy drop cloths, the first thing you need to eliminate from your mind is the word “plastic.” While there are many brands of plastic drop cloths available on the market, in any thickness and size you can imagine, they all share one common fault; none of them can absorb paint. When your paint drips, and it will drip, you want something to absorb that drip, not just preserve it until you can step in it. Many a carpet has received a lovely, colorful footprint from painting over plastic drop cloths.
The only thing that plastic drop cloths are useful for is for covering furniture. Even then, you don’t want to take that drop cloth and move it to another piece of furniture, because you may have paint drips on it and not be able to keep track of which side is up.
The second thing you want to keep in mind is that bigger is always better. Trying to use a 9 foot x 12 foot drop cloth to paint your 10 foot x 12 foot room is a prescription for disaster. While you can always fold a drop cloth that is too big, you can’t stretch one that is too small. If you are going to cover furniture with it, you will be amazed at how quickly your drop cloths seem to shrink. What you thought was big enough suddenly seems like it’s last year’s size.
I've always used canvas drop cloths, as most professionals do. However, I recognize that not everyone reading this list is going to want to invest in a bunch of canvas drop cloths, so I've also included some plastic-backed paper, disposable drop cloths. While they won’t last you years, they will work for the project you are trying to complete.
A good habit to form with your drop cloths is that of always using the same side up. That way, when you move the drop cloth, you’ll be sure that any paint drips on the drop cloth are on the “UP” side and not on your furniture and carpeting. To start out with, mark the up side in several places with a thick magic marker. After a while, the paint splatters and drips themselves will make it obvious which is the up side for that drop cloth. Check out our list of the best painting tarps in 2022.