I had to sparay paint the walnut stain on the wood trim of my mostly white stucco house. Brush painting would have been very long and difficult to do by myself. There is some overspray of dark brown on the stucco. What is the best paint or material to use to cover up this overspray. I am thinking of quicklime whitewash. But where do I buy quicklime from?
Is it real stucco or the synthetic or painted stucco, real stucco use stucco, but it wont match in color so it will have to be tinted, a tough job even for a pro. If painted or synthetic, paint it, but again color matching is going to be tough. If real stuco you might wire brush off the overspray. If its painted you might try thinner if its oil stain, or if water stain alcohol , soapy water to loosen and remove overspray, and it depends on how much overspray, if real bad refinishing the whole side might be best. But why anybody would spray their trim because using a brush is to much work and didnt Mask the trim is beyond me. You probably could have doubled the jobs cost by not using a brush in the first place. Advise from a pro or a real paint store is best show them photos and get real help of a pro.
Oil or water based stain? If water based, you might be able to wash most of it off (carefully) with brush and hot soapy water. If oil based, you probably should use oil-based stain-blocking primer, then paint. A chip of the old paint can be matched pretty well at a good paint store. Always easier to do it right the first time :o)
We have a neighbor who had a spray-painting disaster inside his condo because he changed his mind about remodeling. We helped get dried latex paint off his cabinets, counters and parquet floor. Tough job, lots of Formula 409.
Is quicklime water soluble? If so, probably not the best solution.
I've used the wide aluminum shield for years and works pretty good:
Whitewash:
Its real stucco and I had daubed fresh stucco over the overspray. It looks good close up but the color (new=bright white, original= slightly beige) difference is visible from afar. But this seems the best touch up option so far. I was hoping someone would confirm my idea of using quicklime. Quicklime is the basis of the original stucco mix and is a strong alkali which will likely chemically leach out the oil based stain while providing a temporary white mask overcoat. My expectation is that the quicklime will eventually weather out to expose the original stucco or at least weather over a few seasons to blend in with the original stucco color. Who sells 25 lb bags of quicklime?
The overspray and oil based paint spatters get absorbed into the stucco fast. Using solvents only makes a small paint problem spread into a blob.
I had tried brush painting and the problems are, by the time I have the ladder resting against on the second floor roof gutter (24 feet?) I dare not lean over the side to reach the further parts of the Tudor Style wood trim. The house is too big and its construction does not lend itself to my fixing a safety rope harness over the roof. I am retired, live alone and cannot get help even if it is to hold the ladder stable. Paying someone is out of the question (big bucks for a cosmetic item.) I leaned to the side, not once but twice over a 10 year interval, on a 6 foot step ladder and it flipped. Just a 3 foot fall. Nothing broken but I was practically crippled (hips) for a couple of weeks on both occasions.
The biggest problem with brush painting is that when chrging the brush with stain from the can drops of paint inevitably get flickered onto the stucco. Having to move the ladder frequently and carrying a gallon can of oil based stain up and down the tall ladder.....problematical including tipping over two almost full cans of stain, fortunately on the grass. Spraying gives me a reach of an extra foot or two on either side and I have a contractor air compressor and paint spraying equipment. I did use a straight edge to mask but the stucco has a kind of slump texture that prevents a good masking. The straight edge cannot be more than 2 feet as a longer mask leaves too many gaps against the stucco and allows highly visible overspray.
My latest idea is to go back to brush painting. But instead of hanging a clumsy heavy gallon can of stain from the rung I will load up a hand misting spray bottle (Dollar Store item) with stain and squirt that onto the paint brush to charge up the brush with stain. That way I have enough paint to cover as much as I can reach, I won't get overspray and I won't get paint flickers on the stucco. And I can climb up and down the ladder safely and quickly as often as i need to.
Quicklime! A paint fashonable 100 years ago. I think a quality latex would stand up better than a coat of baked limestone slurry. If you want, you can usually get it in the garden dept for adjusting the acidity of the soil. How it is mixed to apply to a house is lost to me. I think they mixed it with milk and water. If you go that way maybe you also want to make some homemade red iron oxide barn paint to complete the turn of the century look. (rust, eggs and milk as a binder, all stuff farmers had in abundance). Neither paint was stable for long and streaking due to rain is expected from either.
You can't buy either, you have to make it yourself. Here is some more info I found:
Thank's for the link and the garden supplies source. I originally came from the Far East where we used whitewash, a cottage industry using burnt seashells and old coral, for painting concrete walls. I am quite familiar with their properties as paints. They flake off around something like five years as they absorb CO2 and change into carbonate, a property useful in my application. At least quicklime is quite similar to stucco and will weather similarly. White stain won't have the covering power. Using latex paint to cover the overspray I think will risk weathering that will produce tattered strands of latex resulting in moldy streaks that stand out.
Not mold or tattered strands will happen with latex, I never heard that one before.
I used to have a neighbor that whitewashed his stucco house. When he passed away his childrnen sold the house and the new owner used a latex paint. It looked nice at first . Its my understanding that they should have either kept on whitewashing it or used a free chalking paint.
Jimmie
Stucco breathes. Latex paint will seal it and cause all sorts of dampness problems if you paint over stucco with latex.
If used for touching up spots moisture has an opportunity to remain under the latex coat. In my place, Edmonton, Alberta, the humidity is quite low 50 to 70 per cent, we must have some super breed of mold. That stuff grows immediately on any damp spot. When rain runs down the wall it provides a temporary growth path for the mold colony under the latex. That means the original black area will produce multiple streaks. My house is 30 years old and looks great. I don't have any mold problem. But I have seen that on neighboring houses.
Sounds like your neighbors just painted over the old mold only to have it come back. If you properly clean and prime any bare areas, you should not get mold or moisture penetration with an adequate coat. You can also get paint with a mold inhibitor. Stucco breaths from the back surface.
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