Filed under: home improvement, How To, Painting | Tags: home improvement, How To, Painting, renovation
I’m getting a crash course in home renovation! This past week I learned the basic prep work that needs to be done before painting a room. Now, most houses don’t have 80+ years of paint peeling off the woodwork, random holes in the ceiling, walls, and trim, and remnant of cat pee odor lurking somewhere in the walls. But, whatever the need, here are some basics I’ve learned:
-Metal scraper (make sure its sharp! I spent about twice as long on a room with a dull scraper! Thanks, Tim ;)
-Face mask (to block out dust, not to mention all that lead!)
-Wood filler
-Drywall spackle
Depew’s walls are drywall covering the original lap board siding. We just focused on the wood trim… which was no small task!
Basically, I went over the wood with my scraper, and if it didn’t come off fairly easily, I moved on. There was a good bit of elbow grease that went into it, and my arms felt like spaghetti afterwards, but I learned that if I had to press into the wood too hard, it wasn’t worth it. That’s what the sander is for.
After we finished scraping the trim, we used wood filler in all the holes in the wood. Sarah went back over my (and Liz and Tim’s) handywork with an electric sander after the wood filler had dried (usually we left it overnight). I kept asking to use the sander, but she always politely suggested that I fill holes and let her sand… I suppose the idea of me handling a power tool made her a bit nervous. Can’t say that I blame her.
As Sarah sanded, I filled in the holes in the drywall with spackle. Once the sanding and hole-patching was complete, we had ourselves a room ready to paint! And that’s Paint Prep 101!
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Great first-hand perspective! She probably wouldn’t have let me use the sander either. She’s a power tool hog! ;-) Well, her house her rules.
I still say there are few things in life as satisfying as peeling off a giant piece of old paint with a scraper and having the paint peel off in a big long strip. It’s like scratching an itch!
Comment by tim stewart December 29, 2009 @ 7:29 AMThanks Sara . . . great lesson in scraping. It was definately more work than I anticipated. With Depew being so old, the trim is 5.25″ wide – leaving lots of surface area for us to work on. For the power tools, I didn’t intend to keep you from taking part. I just wanted to save your lungs from the dust! Next time, the sander is all yours!
Comment by sarahgamble December 30, 2009 @ 3:27 AM