Geri Sullivan, Girl Homeowner [Redux]
Aug. 26th, 2005 02:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gerisullivanI'm going to be scrubbing walls forever. At least, it sure feels that way!
Hit the rewind key to May, 2004.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
elaine_brennan came up to help me settle into Toad Woods. Alas, the moving truck was due in a bit after I'd anticipated when we scheduled her visit. So we tackled the wallpaper on the stairs. Most of the wallpaper in the house was painted over before I took possession, but not the stairway or upstairs hall. The paper was in good shape, but it wasn't to my liking. It wasn't in any way horrible; it just wasn't me.
Nor am I one to paint over wallpaper, so we scored the paper, sprayed on the Zif adhesive softener, and scraped, scraped, scraped. Joe and Edie were in Spain; Baskerville watched us work, and occasionally tried to help.
We pretty much cleared the stairway, and scored some of the paper in the hall, but then we ran out of time.
Fast-forward 14 months. I've stared at the paper in the hall a kazillion times since, and grown overly used to the dull yellow surface of the stairway walls, still flecked with small pieces of paper that proved overly determined to stick. Enough already; it was time to finish the job and move on.
The paper came off the walls in the upstairs hall much more easily than I remember scraping and peeling it off in the stairway. One late-night session for the bulk of it, another, shorter session for the ladder work to finish off the top couple of feet all around. Basker was here this time, too. But if the dog was the key to stripping the paper, I would have finished the job last Christmas, so we can't blame or credit her.
I took Basker home, stayed over for a couple of days, then headed back north. Stopped at Orange (the big box hardware store that's not Blue) along the way to look intently at paint chips. Went ahead and picked some. The woman mixing paint said, "you don't want to do that; the glaze color won't hold, it'll turn pink; you won't like it." So I picked a darker shade of the vibrant PROmote Communications burgundy I was going for. Nope, that wouldn't work either. At least, not as glaze. I could use it for a base coat, over tinted primer, and then glaze the lighter mauve over it, though the glazes were still going to tend toward pinkness.
More consultation, more staring at paint chips and reading of paint and glaze cans. I finally pointed to the sample chips in the colorbrushing section of the special effects guide -- "this example will work, please mix up these colors." And so she did. I asked her advice on primer; I'm a primer sort of girl. (Thanks,galacticvoyeur!)
Latex wasn't going to be happy sticking to any adhesive residue left over from the paper, so I girded my loins and went for the recommended oil based primer. She even tinted it to match the base coat of the paint. Then I picked up a low cost roller that I plan to throw away as soon as I finish with the primer. I looked at brushes, too, but I have a good selection of those, and a spinner for cleaning them. Yes, the spinner would clean the roller, too, but I really have little interest in trying to clean oil based paint out of a roller. Other supplies included non-phosphate TSP, spackle, and paint thinner.
All that stuff sat on the stairs for a couple of days. Then tonight, I finally started scrubbing the walls with the TSP. Scrub, scrub, notice bit of paper residue, spray, scrap, scrap. Followed by more scrub, scrub. I finished a first pass on the stairway, and the two smaller wall areas (though not the up-top part that requires the ladder). I'll be scrubbing for a couple more hours yet, and it could easily turn into more. Then spackle a few places here and there, sand it down, tape all of the edges -- that'll take an intimidating amount of time all by itself. There are 5 doors, the stair woodwork, a plumbing access panel, a couple of electrical outlets, and a couple more weird little bits, just to keep my life interesting.
Then there's the painting itself. Cutting in around all of those edges, then rolling, rolling, rolling. Primer. Paint. Testing for the effect I want with the two glaze tones. Not a straight colorwash. More likely a combination of sponge roller and cheesecloth blotting to soften the edges. Nothing overly precise, but some rich color and texture at the core of the house. I'll start at the top, in a corner I don't see until I go around to the guest bedroom. Ah, and maybe play a bit with the wall that holds the large mirror, since most of my efforts will be covered over by the time I'm done. The bottom 4-5 feet on the stairs are what really count. Along the one wall that extends down that far, that is. (The other wall switches over to an few feet of open railing at that point.) I see that bottom patch every time I look up from my desk, from my computer. And that happens rather a lot. I want that wall to bring visual delight every time I look at it.
So, how do those folks on Trading Spaces, Design on a Dime, Queer Eye, and other Bravo and HGTV shows ever accomplish so much in so little time? I watch them from time to time, but the speed still croggles I'll have had six work sessions on the walls by the time I even start to apply the tape. Then I'll have to wait for the primer to dry. Et cetera.
I tell 'ya, those smudged yellow walls are looking better and better...
Hit the rewind key to May, 2004.
elaine_brennan came up to help me settle into Toad Woods. Alas, the moving truck was due in a bit after I'd anticipated when we scheduled her visit. So we tackled the wallpaper on the stairs. Most of the wallpaper in the house was painted over before I took possession, but not the stairway or upstairs hall. The paper was in good shape, but it wasn't to my liking. It wasn't in any way horrible; it just wasn't me. Nor am I one to paint over wallpaper, so we scored the paper, sprayed on the Zif adhesive softener, and scraped, scraped, scraped. Joe and Edie were in Spain; Baskerville watched us work, and occasionally tried to help.
We pretty much cleared the stairway, and scored some of the paper in the hall, but then we ran out of time.
Fast-forward 14 months. I've stared at the paper in the hall a kazillion times since, and grown overly used to the dull yellow surface of the stairway walls, still flecked with small pieces of paper that proved overly determined to stick. Enough already; it was time to finish the job and move on.
The paper came off the walls in the upstairs hall much more easily than I remember scraping and peeling it off in the stairway. One late-night session for the bulk of it, another, shorter session for the ladder work to finish off the top couple of feet all around. Basker was here this time, too. But if the dog was the key to stripping the paper, I would have finished the job last Christmas, so we can't blame or credit her.
I took Basker home, stayed over for a couple of days, then headed back north. Stopped at Orange (the big box hardware store that's not Blue) along the way to look intently at paint chips. Went ahead and picked some. The woman mixing paint said, "you don't want to do that; the glaze color won't hold, it'll turn pink; you won't like it." So I picked a darker shade of the vibrant PROmote Communications burgundy I was going for. Nope, that wouldn't work either. At least, not as glaze. I could use it for a base coat, over tinted primer, and then glaze the lighter mauve over it, though the glazes were still going to tend toward pinkness.
More consultation, more staring at paint chips and reading of paint and glaze cans. I finally pointed to the sample chips in the colorbrushing section of the special effects guide -- "this example will work, please mix up these colors." And so she did. I asked her advice on primer; I'm a primer sort of girl. (Thanks,
galacticvoyeur!)Latex wasn't going to be happy sticking to any adhesive residue left over from the paper, so I girded my loins and went for the recommended oil based primer. She even tinted it to match the base coat of the paint. Then I picked up a low cost roller that I plan to throw away as soon as I finish with the primer. I looked at brushes, too, but I have a good selection of those, and a spinner for cleaning them. Yes, the spinner would clean the roller, too, but I really have little interest in trying to clean oil based paint out of a roller. Other supplies included non-phosphate TSP, spackle, and paint thinner.
All that stuff sat on the stairs for a couple of days. Then tonight, I finally started scrubbing the walls with the TSP. Scrub, scrub, notice bit of paper residue, spray, scrap, scrap. Followed by more scrub, scrub. I finished a first pass on the stairway, and the two smaller wall areas (though not the up-top part that requires the ladder). I'll be scrubbing for a couple more hours yet, and it could easily turn into more. Then spackle a few places here and there, sand it down, tape all of the edges -- that'll take an intimidating amount of time all by itself. There are 5 doors, the stair woodwork, a plumbing access panel, a couple of electrical outlets, and a couple more weird little bits, just to keep my life interesting.
Then there's the painting itself. Cutting in around all of those edges, then rolling, rolling, rolling. Primer. Paint. Testing for the effect I want with the two glaze tones. Not a straight colorwash. More likely a combination of sponge roller and cheesecloth blotting to soften the edges. Nothing overly precise, but some rich color and texture at the core of the house. I'll start at the top, in a corner I don't see until I go around to the guest bedroom. Ah, and maybe play a bit with the wall that holds the large mirror, since most of my efforts will be covered over by the time I'm done. The bottom 4-5 feet on the stairs are what really count. Along the one wall that extends down that far, that is. (The other wall switches over to an few feet of open railing at that point.) I see that bottom patch every time I look up from my desk, from my computer. And that happens rather a lot. I want that wall to bring visual delight every time I look at it.
So, how do those folks on Trading Spaces, Design on a Dime, Queer Eye, and other Bravo and HGTV shows ever accomplish so much in so little time? I watch them from time to time, but the speed still croggles I'll have had six work sessions on the walls by the time I even start to apply the tape. Then I'll have to wait for the primer to dry. Et cetera.
I tell 'ya, those smudged yellow walls are looking better and better...
