The life of a porn addicted housewife.
Monday, October 09, 2006
Painting For Dummies (Like Me!)
I thought I would pass along some things I have learned over the last month about painting 100 year old plaster walls.
1. Do not rely on the blue painters tape to keep your paint where you want it. No matter how hard you stick the tape down, the paint WILL leak under it. Yes I followed the rules about not painting up against it, but it bled under in every single room I have done so far. I have primed every room just as you should, but that has bled under the tape too. Maybe the tape works ok on newer drywall, but not plaster walls that are almost 100 years old. These walls laugh at blue tape!
2. No matter how much paint they say you will need plan on a minimum of twice as much. Old plaster walls, even those that are properly primed, will suck up your paint as fast as you can put it on. Red and orange tones are especially bad about this. Both my orange and red rooms took 4-5 coats of paint after being primed. The yellow gold and green all took two coats, and surprisingly the blue only took one coat.
3. Do not under any circumstances get high gloss paint on a flat paint! I can not stress this enough!!! I am painting the dressing room a deep red with high gloss white trim. Of course the gloss white leaked over onto the flat red and I am playing hell trying to cover it up. A flat paint will NOT cover a gloss without a minimum of 1000 coats. You think I am exaggerating, but trust me, this is a nightmare. On the other hand, one coat of gloss white WILL cover flat red. Red won’t cover white, but white will cover red? I don’t know about you, but to me this just seems to defy all laws of physics.
4. The line between the top of the walls and the ceilings, which are also plaster by the way, is not, has never been, and will never be straight. Learn to live with it or put up molding.
5. No matter how hard you try to keep paint off of the wood floors, even if you cover them with plastic, you WILL get paint on them. Do not try to wipe it up! Let it dry! If you try to wipe it up while it’s wet it smears and can get into the grain of the wood and into the spaces between the slats. Dried dots will pop right off with your fingernails, and larger spots will peel or wash off easily. Another tip, Clorox wipes work great for getting the dried paint off. Not only will you have a clean floor when you are done, it will also be disinfected.
6. Razorblades will become your best friends. Whether it’s cutting stuck tape off of a wall so that you don’t tear the paint, or it’s scraping paint off of things you never meant to get paint on, they will become indispensable.
7. You may think you are done with a room, but in a week you will find something you missed. Be it the inside of a closet left unpainted, paint on a baseboard, or a smudge of paint on the ceiling, you won’t see it right away. Usually you won’t see it until you move the furniture in so you have to work around it. Sometimes I think there is a ghost coming along behind me leaving a paint trail for me to clean up.
8. Even if you make a list, you will never make it home from the store with all of the things you will need. You will never have enough tape, you will always need at least one more roller, and all of your brushes will disappear. Be prepared to make runs to Home Depot on almost a daily basis. I even asked for, and received, Home Depot gift certificates for my birthday.
9. Don’t be afraid to try different colors! White/cream/beige walls are boring at best. Be brave and put some bright or deep colors on the wall. I am painting every room a completely different color and Ap0k and I joke that we are trying to turn the house into a box of crayons.
10. Don’t be afraid to change your mind mid-stream. It’s just paint and if you don’t like it you can always start over.
11. However much you think it will cost, budget more! However long you think it will take, be prepared for it to take longer.
12. Above all else, don’t be afraid to try. At first it will be overwhelming, but once you get into your groove things will go much more smoothly. You will swear a lot in the beginning, but that will soon turn to laughter, and the sense of satisfaction you will feel when you complete a room is well worth any effort you put into it.
(5 down.....10 to go!)
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1. Do not rely on the blue painters tape to keep your paint where you want it. No matter how hard you stick the tape down, the paint WILL leak under it. Yes I followed the rules about not painting up against it, but it bled under in every single room I have done so far. I have primed every room just as you should, but that has bled under the tape too. Maybe the tape works ok on newer drywall, but not plaster walls that are almost 100 years old. These walls laugh at blue tape!
2. No matter how much paint they say you will need plan on a minimum of twice as much. Old plaster walls, even those that are properly primed, will suck up your paint as fast as you can put it on. Red and orange tones are especially bad about this. Both my orange and red rooms took 4-5 coats of paint after being primed. The yellow gold and green all took two coats, and surprisingly the blue only took one coat.
3. Do not under any circumstances get high gloss paint on a flat paint! I can not stress this enough!!! I am painting the dressing room a deep red with high gloss white trim. Of course the gloss white leaked over onto the flat red and I am playing hell trying to cover it up. A flat paint will NOT cover a gloss without a minimum of 1000 coats. You think I am exaggerating, but trust me, this is a nightmare. On the other hand, one coat of gloss white WILL cover flat red. Red won’t cover white, but white will cover red? I don’t know about you, but to me this just seems to defy all laws of physics.
4. The line between the top of the walls and the ceilings, which are also plaster by the way, is not, has never been, and will never be straight. Learn to live with it or put up molding.
5. No matter how hard you try to keep paint off of the wood floors, even if you cover them with plastic, you WILL get paint on them. Do not try to wipe it up! Let it dry! If you try to wipe it up while it’s wet it smears and can get into the grain of the wood and into the spaces between the slats. Dried dots will pop right off with your fingernails, and larger spots will peel or wash off easily. Another tip, Clorox wipes work great for getting the dried paint off. Not only will you have a clean floor when you are done, it will also be disinfected.
6. Razorblades will become your best friends. Whether it’s cutting stuck tape off of a wall so that you don’t tear the paint, or it’s scraping paint off of things you never meant to get paint on, they will become indispensable.
7. You may think you are done with a room, but in a week you will find something you missed. Be it the inside of a closet left unpainted, paint on a baseboard, or a smudge of paint on the ceiling, you won’t see it right away. Usually you won’t see it until you move the furniture in so you have to work around it. Sometimes I think there is a ghost coming along behind me leaving a paint trail for me to clean up.
8. Even if you make a list, you will never make it home from the store with all of the things you will need. You will never have enough tape, you will always need at least one more roller, and all of your brushes will disappear. Be prepared to make runs to Home Depot on almost a daily basis. I even asked for, and received, Home Depot gift certificates for my birthday.
9. Don’t be afraid to try different colors! White/cream/beige walls are boring at best. Be brave and put some bright or deep colors on the wall. I am painting every room a completely different color and Ap0k and I joke that we are trying to turn the house into a box of crayons.
10. Don’t be afraid to change your mind mid-stream. It’s just paint and if you don’t like it you can always start over.
11. However much you think it will cost, budget more! However long you think it will take, be prepared for it to take longer.
12. Above all else, don’t be afraid to try. At first it will be overwhelming, but once you get into your groove things will go much more smoothly. You will swear a lot in the beginning, but that will soon turn to laughter, and the sense of satisfaction you will feel when you complete a room is well worth any effort you put into it.
(5 down.....10 to go!)
