Tip: Almost always the ceiling of any room should be white. It helps reflect light.
I had a shower once that had a wine-colored ceiling.
After closing the curtain, the shower was so dark I had to mark my dirty spots before having a wash.
Sink is okay -- unless you have a septic system. In that case, I'd clean up outside. Latex paint won't hurt the grass.
That=92s exactly what I thought=20 when I told those rules when I talked to my clients=20 until one day one of them asked me to reference it.=20 I must have looked through dozens of house painting books=20 and I still look-through them=20 every time I come across a book on painting=20 but to this day I have never seen=20 those advises written-down in any book.=20 I would greatly appreciate it=20 if you could give me the name and author=20 of any book on house painting that has that advice in.=20 I would immediately buy it=20 and carry it around in my truck to show as reference.
Eye, We, Todd, Did.
Thank you
You've gotten quite a few good tips here. In general, I would advise not to buy the cheapest of anything...paint, brushes, rollers. In choosing a roller, be sure to check the nap length and label....short nap for smooth surfaces. Be sure to mix you paint with a stir stick immediately prior to use, even though they put it on the shaker at the store. I strongly advise using alkyd (oil) semi paint for trim, kitchens and baths because it wears and cleans better. On trim, latex is impossible to sand smooth when you want to repaint. Alkyd is a tad more trouble to clean up, using mineral spirits to clean brush. So what. Using latex, yes you can clean brushes in the kitchen sink, but get rid of as much paint as you can first by squishing brushes in newspaper to get out excess. When finished cleaning either kind of paint from brushes, soak them a while in Dawn dish detergent, work it into base of bristles and then rinse thoroughly.
I would buy paint only at a paint store...Ben Moore, Sher Williams, etc. All in all, meticulous prep is more important than the brand of paint because bad prep will make any paint job look like crap. Make sure surfaces are CLEAN, free of dust, moisture (dry the wall in the bath), mildew, soap scum. If you patch holes, prime the area x2 before painting.
Read labels and follow instructions for use, thinning, recoating, etc.
If you stop and start, wrap roller/brush in foil or plastic and stick it in the freezer.
Very nice summary -- good commonsense stuff that works. I found out the way to clean brushes by accident and, yes, working detergent into the bristles before water rinsing helps the cleaning process. I also keep a wire brush handy to comb the bristles clean of hardened paint and am careful to use synthetic bristles rather than animal bristles for latex paint. If there's any hint of dirt, especially grease, on the previously-painted surface, clean it. I use Windex.
Tomsic
Thank you!
Add bourbon for taste.
If anyone is interested in learning more about latex paint, an excellent resource is the website of the Paint Quality Institute:
'Painting information and resources for home interiors and exteriors - Paint Quality Institute'
The Paint Quality Institute was established by the Rohm & Haas Company who were the largest manufacturer of acrylic resins used to make latex paints, acrylic floor finishes, grout & stone sealers and nail polish for the ladies in North America until they got bought out by Dow in
2009. Dow has chosen to continue funding the Paint Quality Institute, and to expand that web site. The original purpose of the Paint Quality Institute was to educate paint specifiers (like architects), painting professionals and consumers ( which I presume means people that drink paint) on the benefits of consuming better quality latex paints, so it has quite a bit of technical information in it. Unfortunately, I don't know of a similar resource for oil based paints (although you can learn lots about them at the PQI website, too).The technology of acrylic paint is very similar to the technology of acrylic floor finishes, and since I have to maintain both in my building, it was important to me to learn this stuff, so I've spent quite a bit of time on the PQI web site. I like to think I know a little bit about latex paints now, and there's lotsa stuff in this thread that needs to be clarified or the newbies in here might get confused.
For simplicity, I broke this post into separate topics:
_________________________________________________________________
First off, here is my painting tip:
Instead of using a wire brush to clean hardened paint out of the brush AFTER painting, consider soaking your brush in water (or mineral spirits if using oil based paint) and shaking out the excess thinner immediately BEFORE starting to paint. And, if you're painting for a long time, use an eye dropper (that you can buy at any drug store) to periodically add a drop or two of thinner to your brush (near the ferrule) while you paint.
That's cuz those hardened pieces your're cleaning out of the bristles are caused by the paint working it's way up the bristles of your brush and drying there while you were painting. By wetting the brush with thinner first, the air spaces high up in the brush get filled with thinner, and any paint that works it's way up there will just be diluted by the thinner, and won't dry up. So, you won't have to deal with little pieces of hardened paint to begin with. And, it's that process of paint drying inside the brush that causes brushes to go out of shape, so preventing that from happening keeps your brushes in good condition. (watch out when you first start painting with a wet brush cuz there may still be too much water in your brush, and the paint in your brush could be runny)
_________________________________________________________________
Todd:
You should know that if the latex paint above your shower is peeling, it's probably NOT because of insufficient prep work by the previous painter. Paint peeling on the ceiling above a shower is most often caused by using a "budget" priced paint where you need a better quality paint.
In North America, most latex house paints are made of one of two different kinds of plastics:
The problem is that most homeowners don't know very much about paint, so they often buy inexpensive "budget" priced paint and use it everywhere, including in their bathrooms. And, the PVA paint they use doesn't have good enough resistance to moisture to stand up in a wet and humid environment like a bathroom, especially on the ceiling above a shower where the paint gets wet at least once per day.
In this case the advice not to buy cheap really applies. By buying a better quality paint, the binder resin in the paint will be made from that PMMA plastic which is very much more resistant to moisture.
And, if it wuz me, I would buy a latex paint specifically made for bathrooms where the binder resin was specifically chosen because of it's high resistance to moisture.
If the paint is peeling only where the moisture and humidity in your bathroom would be highest, it's not a matter of insufficient preparation prior to painting; it's a matter of using the wrong latex paint. This is a common paint problem that most often misdiagnosed as insufficient prep work.
_______________________________________________________________
KRW:
Go ahead and use a paint roller sleeve on your siding. I painted the front and back of my father's commercial building with latex paint using a paint roller years ago and never had any problems with that paint job. I think the only reason people tend to use brushes on the outside of there house is because a paint tray isn't as practical as a can when you're painting from a ladder.
________________________________________________________________
Someone said to pour off some paint into a small container and paint from the container rather than the can...
..and that's because "oxygen is the enemy of paint".
Someone else said that if you have to stop painting for some reason, wrap the brush and roller in plastic or foil and stick them in the freezer. (I'd add that if you're using an oil based paint, wrap the paint tray in a bigger plastic bag and put it in the fridge or freezer too.)
Both of those statements are good advice if we're talking about oil based paint, but they don't apply if we're talking about painting with latex paint.
In oil based paints, oxygen will be absorbed into the paint as long as the can is open. That oxygen chemically reacts with the oil or alkyd resins to cause the paint to transform from a liquid into a solid. So, the sooner you seal up your oil based paint can after pouring off as much as you need, the less oxygen will be absorbed into the paint remaining in the can and the less of a solid film will form on your paint while it's in storage. (Pour off a generous amount since it's better to put more paint on than to throw a bigger hunk of dried oil based paint film in the garbage.) (If anyone is interested in that chemical reaction with oxygen, ask and I'll post a link that explains it.)
Since it's a chemical reaction that transforms oil based coatings into solid films, cooling an oil based paint will slow that reaction down immensely, so oil based coatings won't "dry" if they're cold. You can paint a fence in a North Dakota blizzard with oil based paint, and the paint will stay tacky until spring, when it will "dry" normally once the warm weather returns.
However, normal latex paints form a film through a completely different process called "coalescence" which doesn't involve any chemical reactions, so I don't see any advantage in putting the latex paint in a cold place. (If anyone is interested in how coalescence works, ask and I'll post a link that explains it.)
(Latex floor paints do have a chemical reaction cuz they use something called a "crosslinking acrylic resin", but that chemical reaction happens in the days and weeks after that "freshly painted" smell dissipates from the room or house.)
So, if you're painting with a latex paint and you have to stop for some reason, just wrap the paint roller sleeve and paint brush in plastic bags, and maybe wrap the paint roller tray in a bigger plastic bag, and that's really all you need to do to prevent sufficient water evaporating from the paint to cause it to "dry" while you're gone. If anyone sees any benefit in cooling latex paint, I'd like to know what they're seeing that I'm not.
Also, exposure to oxygen doesn't affect latex paints like it does oil based paints, so there's no real benefit to pouring off as much latex paint than you think you'll need and sealing up the can asap.
_________________________________________________________________
Someone suggested spraying your hands with Pam and putting cling wrap on your glasses to protect them from paint spatter.
People should know that if you pay more for a better latex paint, you won't have any paint spatter.
When I paint the walls and ceilings in apartments with Pratt & Lambert Accolade Velvet or
Accolade Satin (at $50+ $Cdn per gallon), I don't even bother with drop cloths to protect the carpeting in the suite cuz there simply isn't any spatter. There might be the odd drop fall off the roller sleeve onto the carpet, so I keep a spray bottle full of water and wet/dry ShopVac style vaccuum cleaner handy to deal with those. But, when you figure that you only paint once every 10 years at most, and you're saving most of the cost by doing the work yourself, paying more for better paint to eliminate the hassle of covering up everything isn't unreasonable.
_________________________________________________________________
Hope this helps someone somehow some day. Obviously, I'm not really busy today.
Hi PM,
This is the paint I will be using:
it is engineered with naturally occurring, inorganic silver technology, a technology developed and produced in American laboratories that ensures the paint remains free from damaging and odor causing bacterial and other microbial cells."
Nothing can live in or on this paint. Oh ya, and it "IS" expensive.
My current paint is ~ 20 years old and is a crappy contractor paint.
-T
FOR SUCH A SMALL AREA, JUST USE YOUR HAND AND SPREAD IT.......
DOES TAKING A SIP OUT OF A CAN OF BEER CONTAMINATE THE BEER?
DURING AND AT THE SAME TIME!!!!!!!
JUST DIP IT IN YOUR BEER, THEN DRINK THE BEER *******
You would'nt know anyhow. Mormons dont paint, they just let Jesus do the job. Then they rub their shit on the walls to make nice brown walls, until Jesus changes the color scheme, and thus changes the color of their shit. Ask Mitt Ronmey, he asked Jesus to make him famous, and now he's harassing everyone in America with excessive phone calls and attacking the president with his lies. Mormons are taught to lie to cover up their cult brainwashing.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.