Atelier 918

House Projects Prep

I went to the paint store last week and had a couple of quarts of paint mixed up, one for the base color for the house exterior and the other for the window trim. I want to see what the colors look like in context before committing to the expense of getting the house repainted.

I don't know if I mentioned that a friend of mine rehung the double hung windows in the baby's room at the end of January but they work great now. He stopped by this afternoon while my partner and I were doing a little early Spring gardening and mentioned that he can go through the house with me to review all the windows and see what work they require. He said it would make sense to have them repaired prior to having the house painted. So I think we'll do that tour in the next couple of weeks and I will also start getting bids from painting contractors so we can plan ahead.

Baby's calling, gotta go.

Determined Painter

I'm going to be out of town next weekend and I really want to get this room done before I go. That means that I have to really focus on painting in the evenings but the tast of cutting in really requires some good lighting and I just didn't want to deal with lamps. Instead I got up at 7:30am and threw on my painting clothes and cut in around 75% of the ceiling before work using the daylight as my light source. Since that ceiling edge will show more flaws it needs to be done more slowly so doing it ahead of time meant that I could do the remainder of the cutting in quickly when I got home from work.

I came home at 5:30 and got to work and completed the cutting in all the way around and then rolled on the first coat of paint. Yeah me! I don't think I need to cut in again, just another coat of paint with the roller and it should be good to go.

That just leaves the woodwork to get painted. (groan)

There's something to be said for premium paint

The contrasting experience was quite notable. Some crappy Valspar we had about the house from a project several years ago somehow found its way up to the bathroom for the trim. In addition to stinking of chemicals to high heaven it just wasn't settling into a nice smooth finish. That's why I decided to get over to the paint store for the Fuller O'Brien which had handled so nicely for the bathroom walls.

What a difference. The fumes were tolerable and not making me gag or have a headache, the paint went down easily on the woodwork, covered nicely and cleaned up easily as well. Nice.

If you have a choice, go with the better paint, it's totally worth it -- they use higher quality pigments and better binders (something I learned in art school). Also you should know that just because latex paint is water-based does not mean it is non-toxic. They aren't required to list out the solvents used on the label and The Artist's Complete Health and Safety Guide points out that there are a lot of toxic compounds that you need to watch out for -- latex even contains solvents known to go through gloves into the skin so you really need to handle with care. Still latex is less toxic than oil paint. (Here's a nice page with a table of different art materials and their hazards)

Touching up and almost done

With helpful nudging from my partner I had reprimed the respackled areas in the bathroom. Yesterday evening I cut in with my new very lovely edging brush. Let me tell you that a good brush will make all the difference in the world. I tried using generic brushes that claimed to be premium or professional quality and even I, who graduated with a fine arts degree, couldn't get a nice edge out of the stupid things. The Purdy paint brush I got came recommended by the paint store I like to go to in our neighborhood, The Color Store on Madison Street. They are so nice and helpful there and they even keep your color specs on file should you ever need to get more paint from them.

When doing edging work I also use a paint pail and liner, recommended on one show I wathced as a way to keep the majority of your paint safe from drying out, contamination, or from accidentally dumping it all over the place. They also recommended using a chain to attach the pail to the ladder but I never bothered with that.

Today I got out the roller and extension pole (that's totally worth having around to help wash windows and with painting ceilings) and finished painting the bathroom walls. It's finally back to almost done now. The room needs a good wipe down all over to get rid of any remaining dust and then I can get started on the trim which should be its own good time.

Oh and if you wanted to know the paint color of the bathroom is Silver Spring by Fuller O'Brien.

Smoothing things out

I mentioned that we needed to do a little more fill work around the bathroom. We've now got enought coated that we'll have to do a serious priming and repainting. I feel like we are going backwards but I guess we just need to do what has to be done and it will be that much better going forward.

Nothing much else to report.

Over and out.

Still fairly quiet

My partner has been moving some plants around in the garden, enjoying the nice weather we've been having in Seattle. He's mostly adjusting things so that there is more balance -- some plants overgrew in their previous locations so we're finding new spots where they fit in better.

I got back on the paint stripping in the office last weekend. It's been a while but I needed a break. I really need to crank on it now if that room is every going to get done.

The bathroom is still awaiting completion. We decided to do one more coat of patching to smooth out some remaining imperfections. No, it won't ever be perfect but we want to help get rid of the glaring issues before doing the final coats of paint.

All in good time.

I've got a blue bathroom now

I primed the bathroom earlier this week and then two nights ago I painted the bathroom blue. It looks all nice and spa-like now, just the effect I was looking for. The sink as I mentioned is fully installed and the tile grout is finished except for sealing. I've got one more coat of paint to do on the walls (after fixing a few imperfections) and then next week the rest of it should be done.

Then I willl have to do a kamikaze cleaning of the rest of the house as we are due to have a party next weekend.

Photos to come, probably Monday.

Where did these wahoos come from?

But oy vey have these workmen given me a pain in the neck. The tiler didn't grout very well. I had to mark all these spots where it was really bad last week to get him to fill them in. And he thought he was going to seal it that day. Over the weekend I tried wiping the wall down and it was ripping the sponge up since the edges of the glasstiles weren't flush enough with the grout. We need to have them come again to fill it in as this won't do. I keep thinking about fighting mildew and how am I going to keep this bathroom wall clean if I can't wiped it down properly. I know there will be some inconsistency with this tile but this is out of control.

Then the plumber, brilliant plumber that he is (note the sarcasm in my voice),  comes to hook up the drain for the sink yesterday and suddenly he realizes that the drain is too high as our sink is lower than standard or something. Except that he's had the sink specs and the sink available to check out since his first week on the job. We didn't spring this on him. So what does he do? He cuts a hole in our brand new perfect wall and moves the drain down. Yeah obviously he would have to do that. But then he caps off the other drain with this big black thing. Uh, hello? This is our brand new refinished bathroom and we're going to start leaving weird bits hanging off of walls? Grrrrrr!

So this whole experience leaves us not wanting to work with outsiders and to have us just do it ourselves. We learned more about tile work, drywall, electrical, carpentry and plumbing during this project. We are just so not pleased with how this work is ending up. If we wanted a half-ass job we wouldn't have done it ourselves since our standards are obviously even higher than these wahoos.

Oh well, maybe it will be done next week.

Hall color paint chips

Here are the paint samples for the wall color for the hallway. They are from the Ralph Lauren paint collection. The lighter sample is called Honeycomb and the darker sample is called Blond. I think I like the darker color, the other one is a little too light. I've got to see about getting the painter that we liked to give us a better quote, if we can figure out between us what might keep the costs in check.

Some tricks about finishing plasterboard

I've been sucking up information from all over about finishing wallboard and I've come up with a list of tips for working with wallboard compound:

• Do use the edging pieces on the outside corners
• Start by covering the tape and over several layers and letting it dry in-between gradually feather it out
• Use adhesive plastic mesh tape to join wall board to surrounding wall. This can be used around outlets and pipes as well to help close up holes.
• Using plaster instead of dry-wall compound can be helpful for joining with existing plaster. I've seen no problems at all working with plaster on wallboard.
• Use a damp sponge to help smooth as you are working. Working over plaster the sponge will create a fine grainy texture (this matched our existing plaster wall finish).
• Use a wider blade (8") to smooth the compound, smaller blades are a pain.
• Cover the entire area of wallboard with a skim coat after you have feathered out from the tape joins, it really helps smooth the wall out.
• The smoother it is when you are working with the wet compound the less sanding later. This is totally worth it as plaster dust gets everywhere.

Here are some shots of the wall repair in progress for behind the sink and radiator in the upstairs bathroom.

Original section opened to replace pipes

We decided to open up the entire area since the wall was going to be hard to match as the original plaster on the lower portion of the wall was scored with a brick pattern.

We put in insulation to help ruduce bathroom noise spilling into the next room

Wallboard in place.