Help! I have to paint!

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Do you have any tips for painting that may save my sanity?

-- Sherry (sherina@masc.ca), July 26, 2000

Answers

Painting no. But a crockpot going and some decent beer and a salad in the fridge might divert your attention from time to time -- away from the painting.

-- Richard Walker (rlwalker@granis.net), July 26, 2000.

Get good paint, especially if you're trying to cover a dark color with a light one. And hold off on the beer till you're done for the day ;)

-- Terry (terry@surfnetusa.com), July 27, 2000.

Ah, painting you say? I've done a bit of it and I'm pleased to offer my insights. First, buy good stuff. You'll find that better brushes and better paint are going to make the job go much quicker. Also the end results will look better. With paint, you usually do get what you pay for. Second, do all the "cutting in" before any thing else. By cutting in I mean all the corners, tops of walls, bottoms of walls, etc. Now to do a good job, cutting in takes a bit of time. You have to be careful not to get paint on the ceiling, not to drip paint on the floor and not get frustrated and try to hurry. But, once your done with a good cut in job, the rest is fast and easy. My last step is always the rolling, which is fun and goes so quick. Again, buy better rollers and a good paint pan. The last bit of advice I can give you is to make sure the CD player is full of great music and to turn the volume up! I find I can paint a room from start to finish in no time with a good batch of tunes blasting away.

-- jon (jonrotten@rots.net), July 27, 2000.

Thanks for the tips thus far. As far as music goes, that's definitely not a problem. Between George's music, CAD, and Charlie King, we should be able to blast enough music to keep us going.

Avoiding too much beer is a VERY good idea! I once painted the newspaper office i worked for (we spray painted the walls and we either had to pay for damages or re-paint on the day after school finished). Being college students, we had an industrial sized garbage can FULL of ice and beer and vodka and rum and a bunch of other stuff. And, well, being college students, we were hammered before lunch time. We were proud and thought we did a great paint job. Of course, the following semester, we were constantly explaining to new staffers why the paint job was so shoddy and pathetic.

I don't know about the paint quality, it was given to us free by the landlords. Hopefully it's good.

And i keep coming across references to crock pots. I think i'm going to have to buy one (or see if my grandmother has a spare she can give me) because i have found several delicious-sounding recipes that all require a crockpot. It would be nice to throw something in the oven in the morning and have it all ready to eat by supper time - just not in this hot weather! Eight hours of having the oven on, even at low heat, is too awful to contemplate. :)

-- Sherry (sherry@masc.ca), July 27, 2000.


Hire some college kids - pay them in beer.

-- Kristin Thomas (kristin@sperare.com), July 27, 2000.


Hmmm, typical of course, I could have known you would be painting... Shall I add the 'as well' ?

Use enough tape to tape off whatever part of your place you don't want to paint, be carefull with oil based paint on plastic, it leaves uncleanable stains, leave enough air circulation so you don't sufficate on the fumes and take care of your pets in the same way, best place is outside the home.

Old layers of paint are best removed, but then I moved into a newly built home and no-one ever painted here before, so I don't have that problem, but do use a layer of white cheap paint to stop the wall from soaking, that will come cheaper on the other paint you'll want to use. Clean the walls with water and a bit of ammonia added to remove grease and the paint will stick better.

And if you get bored and don't have an internet connection at home and took a two week vacation off work to do your paint job, think about the local library, they have a great selection of computers to contact all your far away friends (but a bit noisy with three teenage girls doing their homework next to me).

Have a gig Sherry ! And white spirit doesn't only clean your brushes, it's also great to remove paint from your hands, trust me on this 'k !

Cheers,

Wim.

PS: Stop mimicking me... (joke !)

-- Wim Van Oudenhove (wvanoudenhove@ip-globalnet.com), September 15, 2000.


Wim: Sherry's post was from JULY so it is unlikely that she was mimicing you. Maybe you forgot to take your own advice about proper ventilation? ;)

-scully

-- Scully (scully@terrapin-gardens.net), September 15, 2000.


Well, unfortunately July 15th was the day I moved into my new house and started the paint Job, in fact the living room was already done on that day... Lazy me just has to admit that by this time, November 21st, there is still lot to do.

-- Wim Van Oudenhove (wim.van.oudenhove@pandora.be), November 21, 2000.

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