I am not a professional decorator. I want to be upfront about that. I'm a 38-year-old bloke from Coventry who owns a semi-detached house and has, over the years, developed a complicated relationship with DIY. I enjoy it in theory. In practice, I have a spare room that took three weekends to paint because I kept having to redo sections, and a hallway that I'm still not entirely happy with two years later.
The kitchen renovation was supposed to be different. I'd planned it properly. I'd bought good paint. I was not, under any circumstances, going to cut corners.
And then I nearly bought a £4 brush from the hardware shop out of habit, and something stopped me.
The Problem With Every Brush I'd Used Before
Cheap brushes shed. That's the long and short of it. You're halfway through cutting in around a window frame, you're in the zone, and then you notice a bristle embedded in the wet paint. You try to pick it out. You make it worse. You repaint the section. Another bristle appears. It's a special kind of misery.
I'd also struggled with streaking. I could never quite get that smooth, even coat on woodwork and trim — the kind of finish that looks like it was done professionally. I'd assumed it was my technique. It probably was, partly. But the brush matters more than I'd given it credit for.
Why I Chose the Purdy Monarch XL Elite
I spent an evening reading about paint brushes, which is not how I expected to spend a Thursday, but here we are. The consensus among people who actually know what they're doing was consistent: if you want a professional finish on trim and edges, you need a quality brush with the right bristle construction. Synthetic bristles for water-based paints, natural for oil-based, and a tapered tip for control.
The Purdy Monarch XL Elite 2 inch Paint Brush kept coming up. Purdy has a serious reputation among decorators — the kind of brand that professionals actually use rather than just endorse. The Monarch XL Elite specifically is designed for high-performance coverage, with yellow bristles engineered for precision and durability. The 2 inch size is the sweet spot for cutting in, doing trim, and getting into corners without losing control.
I ordered it. It cost more than my usual brush. I told myself it was an investment.
First Use: Cutting In the Kitchen Cabinets
The kitchen cabinets were the part I was most nervous about. Clean lines, tight corners, and a satin finish paint that shows every imperfection. I'd masked everything carefully, mixed the paint, and started cutting in along the top edge of the lower cabinets.
The difference was immediate and slightly annoying — annoying because it made me realise how much time I'd wasted with inferior brushes over the years. The bristles held the paint well without overloading. The tip gave me a level of control I hadn't experienced before. I was cutting a clean, straight line without the brush splaying or dragging. No bristles in the paint. No streaking.
I finished the first cabinet and stood back. It looked like someone who knew what they were doing had painted it. That someone was me, which was a new experience.
The Full Job
I used the Purdy for all the detailed work — cabinet edges, window frames, skirting boards, the tricky bit around the extractor fan housing. For the larger flat surfaces I used a roller, but every edge and every piece of trim was done with this brush. The finish throughout was consistent and clean.
The brush itself cleaned up well too. I rinsed it thoroughly after each session, reshaped the bristles, and stored it flat. After a full weekend of use it still looked and performed like new. A cheap brush would have been half-splayed and half-useless by that point.
Three Weeks Later
The kitchen is finished. It looks, genuinely, like it was done professionally. My partner walked in when I'd completed the final section and said “oh, that actually looks really good” — which, from someone who had watched me repaint the hallway twice, felt like high praise.
The brush is sitting in my tool drawer, clean and ready for the next job. I've already earmarked it for the bathroom, which I'm tackling in September. I won't be going back to cheap brushes. The time saved alone — not having to redo sections, not picking bristles out of wet paint — more than justifies the cost.
Who Is This For?
Honestly? Anyone who paints more than once a year. If you're doing a serious DIY project and you want a finish you're actually proud of, the brush is not the place to save money. The Purdy Monarch XL Elite is the kind of tool that makes you better at the job — not because it does the work for you, but because it doesn't get in the way of your technique.
Find it here: Purdy Monarch XL Elite 2 inch Paint Brush – Professional Yellow Bristle
Browsing for more tools for your next project? Take a look at our Hardware, Tools, Paint Tools, and Paint Brushes collections — everything you need to get the job done properly.
— Stuart Calloway, Coventry
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