If It Doesn't Move, Paint It (Final)

After weeks of spackle, caulk and masking, we were finally ready to shoot the interior of NewOldHouse. We would have arrived here earlier had we not digressed outdoors, but when the rains come, you need to have already gotten your wet/dry solved, or you will be doing it in the rain while everything gets wet. Anyway, today's post covers the final adventure in paint, and a few other things that happened along the way because.. of course.

Just as I completed the work described in this post, I tested positive for CoViD. I am living proof that living a hermit lifestyle is not a guarantee that you won't get CoViD. I have been going to a pizza place in Hillsboro for an open jam on Wednesdays as my only outing, so at least I know where it happened. I've been down nearly 10 days with it now, so progress on cars, the house, even my job is, obviously, halted. Good times.

The Walls Came Down

thar's a furnace in thar

For some reason, when the prior owners installed the gas furnace, they put it into the main living space. I thought it was because of the proximity to the chimney, but from the garage, there is a straight path to the chimney as well, and popping an exhaust through the roof would not have been that difficult. Instead, they put it into the dining area, and then... built walls around it. The new walls were, probably, a foot away from the furnace while the furnace was located 6 inches or so from the original wall. We couldn't figure out the thinking, but we didn't like the furnace location, nor the walls. With a plan to eventually move the furnace into the garage, I tore down the walls around it.

I took the time to remove the baseboards, the door trim, door frames and the doors. I removed the trim nails and collected these reusable bits onto the garage rafters. I then went after the drywall with a rubber mallet. I didn't want to make a huge mess, I just wanted the walls down. So, I loosened the drywall from behind and then pulled sections off with gloved hands. The refuse went out to the dump pile, and I turned to the framing. This was fun. I smacked the inner wall framing a couple of times with the long-handle sledge until the bottom came free. Then, I wrenched the 2x4 back and forth to remove it from the upper. One by one the inner pieces were removed, leaving the corner and the door frames. For the door frame-framing (the 2x4's that create the rough door opening to which the door frame is attached), I removed the header first, and then the side pieces could remove in a similar fashion to the middle framing bits. Then, I took out the corner. Again, this was simply smashing with a sledge and prying with a wrecking bar until they gave way. Most of the corner came out in one large section. The ends nearest the original walls were next, and the top plate came down with those, leaving the footer. the footers were set into the original hardwood floor with 3-inch-long nails. To get to those, I carved out the top of the 2x4 with a screwdriver and then leveraged the top of the nail enough to fit the wrecking bar underneath. Some subtle pressure later and the nails were out, and the footer was out. The space seemed much larger.

 

More Masking

walls? what walls?

With the furnace now exposed, I could paint those original walls, but I did not want paint on the furnace or the nicely finished original wood floors around it. So, I spent a couple of hours with paper, plastic and tape covering everything except the venting on the front of the furnace and the exhaust to the chimney. I left those for actual paint-time because I want to keep running the furnace until then.  I know that the exhaust would meld or burn anything I wrapped it with and the front of the furnace needs to be open when in service. On paint day, I turned the furnace off for the shoot, and covered the exhaust with film, the front of the furnace with a sheet of waste cardboard.

Prime Time

Nemo at NewOldHouse

After the walls were washed and I had checked and rechecked that everything had been masked, I had considered priming everything. I decided that it was probably excessive, especially considering how clean the walls were once Boo was done with them. Still, there were some stains, so we got some some Kilz2 to cover them. The Kilz2 does not cover odors, and there were still some remaining cat smells. So, I thought about getting some original oil-based Kilz and shooting the lower 3 feet of all the walls to try to contain that. Again, overkill. I concluded that the cat urine smell was probably not in the plaster, it is probably coming from that space between the hardwood floor and the baseboards. So, I decided that after we stripped the masking out, I would shoot that space with some enzyme-based cleaner (like this).

While I did not prime everything, I did prime the popcorn ceilings in the "new addition" bedrooms (built in early 60's) out of concern for how much paint they would suck up. I shot the stains as well as the original pink paint that appeared where I removed the walls around the furnace, and the area in one of the addition bedrooms where a shelving unit had been removed. Most of these areas were reachable without having to move the sprayer. I needed to move it once, from the rear of the house to where the furnace is. Before I cleaned up the equipment and put everything away, though, I took the operation out to the now-clean future tool/parts shed and shot that entire interior with the Kilz2. It was bare wood, and I figured painting it white would help illuminate the space once filled with shelves and some lighting. The shed has a high shelf/storage area so unlike my spray adventures so far, I needed to work from a ladder to hit the shelf and ceiling well. Even still, this spray was fast, and since I had started early in the day, I felt confident that I could get most of the interior spray done.

Shooting for Good... Enough

tool shed primed

Our original plan was to buy really good white exterior paint. At $300US per 5 gallons, we changed our minds, and bought generic indoor/outdoor eggshell white paint. The house is still white, but we may need to paint again sooner. So what? There is quite a bit of siding that needs replacing, so little harm done. Fast-forward a few weeks and Boo and I got to a similar conversation about the interior paint. I painted our current house interior with an eggshell "Brazilian Tan", which is beautiful, but the house was already dark and even though the Brazilian Tan was lighter than the paint it went on top of, it's still pretty dark in there. Even in the summer. NewOldHouse is not in perma-shade like the current place it, but we decided we want it to be super bright.

We talked about painting the walls with some color, but the main rooms have coved ceilings, making it difficult to draw a line where the colored wall would meet a white ceiling. Many older houses have a picture rail that will draw that line for you. Since we don't, and we were not sure what to do color-wise AND draw-the-line-wise, we went with.... generic indoor/outdoor eggshell white paint. Sound familiar? Yep, it's the exact same paint. Why keep all these tins of touch-up paint when you can keep only one? LOL. I'm sure this paint will be acting as a primer for the next coat (that has a color), it's just a question of when. For now, white walls go with any decor... well... they will go with ours anyway.

Paint On!

furthest room shot

With the stains and popcorn ceilings primed, I switched over from the Kilz2 to the eggshell and grabbed a quick bite. My time shooting Zed taught me that once you start, you really can't stop unless there is a clear line where the painting can stop. I also remembered that ventilation is super important, so I set a box fan in the open front door (blowing out), and had the kitchen windows wide open. I wasn't sure how long the Kilz2 had been drying on the ceilings in the back bedrooms, so I started with the shed. This gave Boo the most time remaining to clean whatever walls or ceilings we had not yet cleaned. By doing the shed first, I also took advantage of the little daylight Oregon has at this time of year. The shed painted like it primed, though I fogged (light passes at a greater distance) some of the wood panels after I completed the shoot, trying to get consistent coverage. In the end, most of the walls will be covered with shelves, so the handiwork won't really show, but I have a hard time half-assing things.

Once the tool shed was painted, I moved the sprayer into the furthest new-addition bedroom, and shot it completely. I started with the closet and then the ceiling. Then, I shot the window frames and finally the walls and baseboard, working my way towards the doorway. This kept the paint hose from hitting freshly painted walls or trim, and the sprayer in one spot for the duration of that room. Once the rest of the room was done, I moved the sprayer into the next bedroom and shot the doorway and the door. Last, I cracked the large window to let some fresh air in.

 

front living room shot

I sprayed the next bedroom following the same pattern: closet, ceiling, window frames, walls and baseboards. Again, I backed my way out of the room, moved the sprayer and then shot the doorway and the door. I continued this pattern, backing down the rear hallway, shooting the ceiling, then walls before moving the sprayer into the one original bedroom. Unlike the other 2 bedrooms, I decided that shooting the window frames early effectively restricted the amount of light I had to work with. So, I shot the window frame after I did the baseboards. Similar to the other rooms, though, I left the space around the doorway for after I moved the sprayer, and shot that area last. After cracking the window, I hit the hallway, turned off the furnace, removed the thermostat and then shot the hallway, avoiding the cold air intake.

 

At this point, it was past 430PM, so twilight was setting in. Without meaningful light, my shoot was done for the day. So, I popped the thermostat back in, turned the furnace on and cleaned up the sprayer for the night.

 

Second Verse, Same as the First

main room, start of day 2

When I returned the following morning, I walked the area which needed to be painted. The furnace was not 100% covered yet and in the middle of the main space Boo and I had set out all of the built-in drawers and the pieces of my desk to get painted with the rest of the house. Navigating these items while shooting the ceiling was not a good idea. So, I moved the drawers, desk cabinets and shelving into the front bedroom to get shot. Next, I looked at the ceilings; we had not quite finished washing all of it, so I TSP'd a section. Last, the doorway into the partially demolished kitchen was unimpeded. Everything that had been setting in the main room for our workday comforts (camping chairs, snack cooler, etc) were in the kitchen too. So, I added overlapping plastic sheeting over the doorway, so overspray would not blow onto our creature comforts.

Ready for another shoot, I donned the old white overalls, wrapped my head with a white T-shirt, set up the sprayer and got after it. I started with the walls around the furnace, so I could unmask and re-start it at the earliest moment. I moved through the space anti-clockwise, shooting the eating nook first, then the main living space and finally the den-like area directly rear of the living room. Satisfied, I moved the sprayer into the front hall and shot the drawers, etc set up in the front bedroom, completing the spray. End-to-end, it was probably around 6 hours of shooting plus a few hours of cleaning / prep on the second shoot day.

 

Clean Your Tools

main living space complete

To clean the sprayer, I put about 2 gallons of water into a clean 5 gallon bucket. Before I dropped the sprayer pickup tune into it, I hosed the pickup tube off with the garden hose. Now somewhat clean, I put the pickup tube into the water and the priming hose back into the paint. I primed the machine until water was coming out the priming hose, and then I shifted that hose into a recently emptied 5 gallon now-slop bucket. I continued to prime until the priming hose was running clear. Then, I switched over to "sprayer" from "prime" and did the same thing: shot into the paint (reversed the tip) until it started to get watery, then switched over to the slop bucket. Once the gun was shooting mostly clear, I shut things down, released the pressure and took the pieces into the garage sink for cleaning. Since most of the paint was already run out, cleaning with running water and soap was relatively quick. Paint needs warm air, so I set the furnace to run the fan all night and I left the box fan running as well, to help speed the drying.

 

Strip, Lights

further room done

Boo and I returned the following day and started pulling the masking off. For me, the most important thing was that we didn't have many thin or bare spots. I only found one 2-foot by 3-foot bare spot on one ceiling, and I decided to fix it with a flat-nap roller rather than pull out the sprayer. Otherwise, the coverage looked good. Sure, there were some heavy spots, and I attribute that to the hard-to-see from lack of light. Regardless, we pulled the paper and film from the windows, light fixtures and floors, rolling it into a big puffy pile as we went. We discovered some spots where the tape did not hold, allowing for paint to get on the floors, but overall, the finished product looks really good. Once the paper was up, I cleaned each light fixture and mounted it, with bulbs.

This was a huge milestone. With the interior of both the house and the tool/parts shed painted, we can start moving non-essential things (like Nemo, the Audi A4 B5) over to the NewOldHouse. Nemo drove over with no issues, by the way. We need to source, paint, measure, cut and install 1-inch quarter round pretty much everywhere the new painted baseboard approaches the wood floor, though. If you look at these couple of pictures, you can see the gap. I expect we will be doing the 1/4-round a room at a time so it doesn't become a huge undertaking. Of course, at one room at a time, it could take quite a while to complete. Once we do it, I'll post on how we went after it.

 

Because moving is really only interesting to the person who is moving, I won't post on it. If something else happens that might actually be interesting, I'll post on it. Otherwise, until after the move, thanks, as always, for following along-

If It Doesn't Move, Paint it (Part 2)

Continuing the journey of getting our new space ready for moving in, we completed the painting of  exterior... so today's post covers that.

But First, Cars

Me, Joe and the truck

Boo and I took an evening off from the house repairs to help our friend Joe. Joe is partway through an engine replacement on a 90's Ford pickup truck, and since I can't really get into any of my projects out of fear of them becoming such a time-suck the house move/swap timing is jeopardized... I got my car-fun in helping out a friend. All we got done in a couple of hours was the install of the power-steering pump, the A/C pump and the serpentine belt, but those are 3 fewer things for Joe to do on his own, so it's a win. I expect we'll be over there again sometime soon to help through the next step, whatever that is.

Caulk

Like so many jobs, I started so optimistically. I thought I could get the caulking done, quick-mask and start shooting in one week. Well, that didn't quite work out. I was able to get the caulking done around work obligations during the week, but I did not anticipate the need to prime the bare wood spots. For caulking, I simply hit every seam between the windows and the siding. Many of these seams were in fair condition, and were still holding after the power-wash and scraping. Still, I ran a thin bead anyway. With a gloved hand, I then ran a finger on the bead of caulk to set it into the gap and flatten it tight against the joining surfaces. This assures a good seal.

Prime

you're not blurry. I was

Boo went to get us some paint and learned from the paint guy that no matter what it says on the 5-gallon tub or on the manufacturer's website, paint needs primer to work best. The stuff that says "self-priming" is really just a marketing shtick. I figured that the paint guy could have been trying to up-sell, but after the Zed painting experience, I was willing to accept paint needs primer. So, we grabbed a 5-gallon of Kilz interior/exterior primer and some brushes.

Ready to start, Boo wisely asked "should we wash the house again first?". When we bought this fixer, the house next door was ALSO sold as a fixer and they had been generating lots of dust clearing their lot. That dust was now a heavy coat on our house. So, with the pressure sprayer full of house-wash soap and a pressure-nozzle on the garden hose, I spent Saturday morning washing the house.

Fortunately, we have been enjoying some late-Summer-like warm dry sunny weather so while I was washing one side of the house, the side I just washed was quickly drying. Once I was done, I switched to brushing the Kilz.

I simply brushed primer everywhere I could see wood. Unfortunately, for some areas that was practically the entire thing. The window frames were especially in-need. I found that the areas which were facing direct sunlight, but had not completely peeled were very paint-thirsty, sucking up a brush-load of paint in just a few inches. We pressed on and by the middle of the following day (Sunday) we had it all primed.

Mask

masked, garage needs primer

While Boo finished the last of the priming, I shifted to masking. The plastic folded film makes masking fairly easy: pick an orientation that allows you to use the least amount of material... line it up so the amount rolled out is wider than you need and cut. Lay the top edge of the plastic against the shorter length of the area you are masking (like a window frame) and tape to the edge, leaving the tape edge far enough from the edge of what you are painting so you get paint everywhere you want it. Then, unfold the sheet. It will cling to the window, so it should not become unwieldy. Once the far edge has been reached either fold back under or cut off the excess. I will usually clean-tape the first edge and work my way down the sides with tape on my way to the final edge. Then, I tape that final edge.

It is a small house, so masking the windows only took me the better part of an afternoon. I completed the task by masking off the gas and electric meters, as well as the water taps. I did not intend to paint the front door trim with the sprayer, so I simply hug some plastic to avoid getting overspray near it. In the picture above, you can see the masked front exterior. Boo primed that garage door after I took the picture.

Shoot

A few weeks ago, Boo and I hit Harbor Freight with a 20% off coupon, so I got one of these for 20% off. Winning. I got a 20-inch tip extension and an extra, smaller tip (which I didn't use). Then, last weekend, Boo picked up some basic white interior/exterior eggshell latex paint. Once the house was ready, I left work early (3PM) Tuesday to get the paint sprayer assembled and primed with water, so I could get a handle on using it. Assembly, priming and getting a feel for it with water took 30 minutes. Once it was ready, I readied the workspace with a 5-gallon of exterior paint, a long extension cord and a drop-cloth. We have a limited number of outlets with the grounding plug, so the biggest challenge was routing electrical so I could keep shooting. The actual sprayer worked great. The coverage was consistent, and while I kept the pressure on it's lowest setting, I still had a paint fan wide enough to completely cover 2 boards of wide siding in a single pass. I did not suffer much over-spray either.

painted

The shoot started around 4PM and took about 90 minutes. To clean up, I put a couple of gallons of water in a spare 5-gallon bucket. I pulled the draw hose out of the paint, wiped the excess paint off and dropped it into the water. I sent the priming overflow into a waste bucket and primed the pump with water. Once the overflow was running cloudy water, I switched from the prime to the spray setting, running the sprayer tip into the waste bucket. I would check the water:paint by spraying onto the dead grass, looking for how white it was. Once it was cloudy water, I shut it down, took it apart and took the hoses and sprayer bits to a sink for more cleaning. I spent, probably, 45 minutes in-total getting the equipment clean and then left it all soaking in soapy water for a final rinse and re-assembly the next day.

The masking is still in place. We will be taking a more in-depth walk-about, looking for thin spots before pulling the masking down. We did walk the work after it was shot, while it was still drying, and it looked very promising. Since the last sections were still very wet, it was hard to determine the quality of the coverage. I hope we will determine the coverage good enough to warrant brushing any thin spots so we can pull the masking and start thinking about the interior paint.

That's it for today. Thanks, as always, for following along-