Blog - Painters Flair

Painting Interior And Unifying Colors

9Jul2018

Interior Painting Ideas to Improve Unity of Color

By Nicky Taylor

I am often asked by homeowners planning interior painting for their home, if it is correct to paint the trim in a particular room a different color than the trim in the rest of their home. Many times the issue arises when they are planning a particular color, on account of a color they have seen in a magazine or while visiting a friends home. Maybe they’re trying to match colors in a particular fabric they are planning to use in that room. Anyway, the problem arises with what to do with the trim for that room. How do you work it into the existing color scheme of your home?

While there is no absolute rule about trim color, that if broken, would cause you to be arrested by the color scheme patrol, there are some things you should consider.

1. The trim and ceilings of your home are what establishes a unified look and feel throughout your home. You can change your walls to any color that you like, or that fits with the theme you have planned for the interior of your home. The use of one color on the trim and ceilings will give you a smooth transition between wall colors as you travel throughout your home. Without this consistency, your home takes on a feeling of disunity.

2. White trim and some off-white colors will go with any wall color. That is why it is so popular. It gives you much greater flexibility in interior color coordination and design. Deciding to paint your trim a color other than white will limit your decorating options; however, I have seen some marvelous color co ordinations while using more color for trim.

If you really want to change the color of the trim for a particular room, then test the color. Try to get a feel for how it will impact the rooms or halls adjacent to that room. Will it be completely separated by a door? Will the door be closed most of the time? If the room is open to other areas of the house that are easily seen, how will that impact the color theme for the other parts of your home?

You don’t want to put a lot of time and effort into painting a room if in the long run you’re not happy with how it makes the rest of your home look. Test the color on a door jamb or baseboard and then stand back and get a feel for what it does for unity of passage from other rooms to that room. It would be a good idea to wait a few days to see if you grow tired of the transition between colors. Often what we initially think looks good, loses its appeal over time.

Nicky Taylor CEO of Painters Flair And Our Painter Services

Exterior Painting, News, Painting Tips

Exterior Painting – Prepping Your Home Before Painting

23Mar2017

Exterior painting service and painters Marietta Ga

The secret to a good paint job is to put effort into quality surface preparation. Paint preparation has the same importance as Painting itself. Correctly prepared painting surfaces take paint better, allowing it to completely adhere to a solid base, have a more beautiful, long-lasting finish. Preparation can be boring and consumes a lot of time but when you aim for the best, then you must undergo these processes.

Preparation is systematic. It should flow chronologically in order not to compromise other steps involved.

Cleaning

The outside of the house must be cleaned thoroughly as the paint won’t stick to dirt, grease, grime, or dust. The tool of choice is a pressure washer that develops between 2500 and 3500 pounds per square inch of pressure. However, using this machine requires experience, if not used properly it can damage your exterior walls. Just do not point the pressure washer wand upward on shingled or lap siding. If you point the wand upward, you run the risk of filling the inside of the walls with water. Don’t get to close to the surface of the siding either or you will gouge a hole in it.

If the house is peeling in areas, try to remove the peeling paint with the pressure washer. Be careful not to gouge the surface. If you don’t have access to a pressure washer then use a brush attachment to your hose which often comes with a reservoir of liquid soap below.

If this tool isn’t available, then you can wash it by climbing a ladder with a rag or sponge. If the siding has a minor discoloration, molds or mildew, use an anti-fungal cleaner to get rid of it. After cleaning, be sure to forget to rinse the house. Clean from top-to-bottom.

Drying

Once the house has been thoroughly cleaned, then allow it to dry. This factor is important because if the wall is not thoroughly dry, paint could peel prematurely and eventually the whole process would fail. If you plan to paint latex, wait one day. If oil-based paint is your plan, then wait 3 days. If you have used a power washer to clean the blistered paint, then you need to extend the time allowance for drying some.

Surface Preparation

Although removing the blistered paint is also important in the cleaning process, you will need to use a paint scrapper, putty knife or a wire brush to remove that will not come off with the pressure washer.

Check and address your siding and trim for any nail holes or cracks. Trim blemishes can be easily filled with all purpose Bondo. This works well on smaller gouges or decaying areas, but trim with larger areas of rot should really be replaced to avoid trouble in the future. After they dry, use sandpaper to smooth and level the Bondo surface.

Covering Surfaces

Mask or cover areas where you don’t want paint to spill. You should use the blue masking tape along the edge of the trim, door and window frames including the glass doors. Using blue masking tape and paper to wrap all these areas will decrease your work time. Cleanup will be a minimum. A hand held masking machine can make this a little easier.

Place plastic drop cloths over areas where paint may drip, usually on porches, roof sections, sidewalks, or driveways. This will also reduce cleanup time and produce a more professional looking paint job.

Now you are ready to paint. You are confident that the quality of your paint job will look like one being done by a professional. If you hire a professional painting contractor, then make sure that detailed preparation and repairs is included in your contract. Once all steps are followed, you are assured of a beautifully painted home for many years.

Nicky Taylor is president of a house painting and home improvement company. Nicky is a leader among the painting contractors in the north Atlanta Georgia area. He shares his knowledge on exterior painting and other home improvement topics at the above painting contractor link through articles and resource materials on various topics. The company website contains helpful information for anyone planning home renovation projects.

Painting Ideas

Exterior Painting: 14 Steps To Prepped

23Mar2017

By Nicky Taylor

Exterior painting is one of the most important things you can do to protect the largest investment you probably will make during life. For exterior painting to last, there are requisite steps. Further more, these steps must be taken to properly prepare your home’s exterior before applying paint. In addition to the prep work, there are some important application procedures that will serve to deliver a nice looking paint job that you can be proud of.

The first step in preparation for exterior painting is to pressure wash your house using M1 and bleach, making sure flaking paint, dirt, mildew, green algae, wasp nest, and other obstructions are removed. Once washed, scrape any remainder of loose paint off with a sharp scraper and metal brush. Sand any bare wood to prepare it for primer. Be sure and wear some kind of eye protection. Then start at the top and work your way down, holding the nozzle about six inches away from the surface and at a 45 degree angle.
If you find mildew still exist after this process, you may need to apply bleach to a rag and scrub these areas. Mildew is attracted to the oil in oil-based paints but will grow on latex paints as well. If mildew is growing on your home, and you can’t seem to eliminate it completely, you may want to add some mildew inhibitor to your paint. However, I will give you a word of caution at this point. Good quality paints already have a safe amount of mildew inhibitors engineered into their formulas. If you add more mildewcide to your paint it can cause your paint to fade prematurely with a lot of exposure to sunlight. Allow all surfaces to dry thoroughly before caulking and priming bare wood.
Exterior painting is significantly improved with proper caulking. When caulking trim to siding, the durability of the caulk joint can be improved by spreading the bead of caulk with your finger. This will improve adhesion. When caulking trim to brick, make sure you use a very narrow bead of caulk. However, do not spread with your finger, or you will make a mess of the caulk line and have to clean your brick. Just use some common sense when caulking. If you are caulking Hardie Plank, use a top quality elastomeric caulk with a high stretch capacity. Hardie plank expands and contracts more than most caulks can handle.
Inspect all metal surfaces for peeling paint (railings, gutters, etc.). Remove loose paint with a metal brush or power brush. Effective acrylic bonding primers exist on the market today for priming bare metal. If you are painting brick, check for cracks. Caulk cracks before painting.
If masonry is less than five years old it can leach out under a painted coating. If less than five years, then avoid this problem by etching with a solution of muriatic acid (1 part acid to 5 parts water). Be sure and take appropriate precautions. This acid is very caustic. Wear rubber gloves and goggles for protection. Pour the water in a plastic container first, then add the acid. This will help prevent splashing. Scrub this compound into concrete. This solution will neutralize the acid in the concrete. Wash off the solution with fresh water. Your concrete is now etched.
Check your home for any bare wood and prime with a high quality latex primer or a top quality oil base primer. This primer coat is the only coat that bonds directly to the wood, therefore, it needs to be of top quality. A top coat of paint on your home is no better than the first coat that is applied to the wood. If the first coat (primer) fails, then the top coats and primer coat peel off together.
Consider masking around light fixtures, motion sensors, electrical boxes, etc. Are you are planning to use a paint sprayer for your siding. If so, then I recommend covering all windows with plastic and tape. This will save you a lot of time in clean up.
In my opinion, as a professional in this industry, where siding joins trim, always cut your trim in to the outer leading edge of the board instead of following the contour of your siding. This produces greater eye appeal from a distance. Where the siding meets the trim is always rounded out with caulk, making it a very poor place to scribe a straight line with your brush.
Avoid time consuming clean up by protecting shrubs, walk ways, roofs, patios, etc with drop cloths. Clean up will cost you much more in time than cover up. When painting exterior surfaces, the do-it-yourselfer has one major consideration, the weather.
Paints have optimum conditions in which they should be applied. It is best not to paint in extreme heat, cold or in the presence of precipitation. Check your paint can label for temperature restrictions.
Painting your siding before painting the trim will save you a lot of cut in time with a brush. If you are planning to stain or paint your decks or patio, then do them last, since you will be working off them during your project. It is best to work from the top down since you will be dripping some paint. Although you need to work from top down, you also should work from side to side as much as possible. This will assist in avoiding a lot of up and down motion on ladders during your exterior painting project.
If you are planning to use a roller to apply paint to lap siding, you will need to back brush to smoothly spread the paint. Roller naps leave a texture to the surface. Be sure and coat the underside edge of each board of lap siding to prevent water absorption from rain.
For stucco, I recommend spraying and dry back rolling to achieve an even distribution of paint. The sprayer applies the paint and the roller simple spreads the paint. Use W strokes with the roller. Avoid dipping the roller in paint as you will be applying to much paint, causing the painted stucco to look uneven. Only allow the paint applied by the sprayer to the stucco to soak into the roller nap.
Cedar shingles with their uneven surface can be painted with a 4″ brush or sprayer. I personally believe you can achieve the best look using a paint sprayer to coat cedar shingles and most other types of siding.

Substandard preparation may save you a little bit of time, but you will pay for it in durability and quality of appearance. It is always best to take your time with the above procedures. They will produce a paint job you will be proud to display.

Nicky Taylor

News, Painting Techniques, Painting Tips

A Painters Nightmare And Solution

23Mar2017

Hardie Plank Siding, Painting and Repairs

A Painter’s Nightmare

By Nicky Taylor

As with many things in life, often there is a silver lining in the cloud that’s raining on your parade. Many homeowners suffered loss during the 90s from having to replace the faulty Louisiana Pacific wafer board siding on their homes. While some homeowners were rewarded money for their losses some unfortunate homeowners who arrived late were rewarded noting. As frustrations rose to a deafening level during the nineties, most barely noticed the new product that was just entering the market.

During this period of time a new type of siding entered the market that offered the durability that most homeowners demanded. It was perfect timing for a cement based siding to enter the market. Many homeowners and builders rushed to buy Hardie Plank to replace the decaying siding that plagued the housing industry. Finally a siding existed that would probably outlast the owner. Most folks viewed this siding as an answer to prayer.

Most painters in our industry welcomed the siding. Not having to deal with swelling siding that wouldn’t hold paint, certainly made our job easier. While most homeowners and painters were excited about this new long lasting siding, most weren’t aware that keeping it caulked would become the new problem that everyone would talk about. The problem was and still is: How do you keep Hardie Plank caulked?

For homes that have exposure to sunlight and widely varying temperatures, keeping Hardie Plank properly caulked is a challenge. Hardie Plank expands and contracts a lot under these conditions. Most caulks simply do not have the elasticity to handle the expansion and contraction.

I have seen the expansion and contraction of Hardie Plank siding pull fresh caulk apart within 24 hours after application. It’s great siding to have on your home, but you better know what you’re doing when it comes to caulking all the joints.

You certainly can’t be economy minded with your purchase of caulk when Hardie Plank is involved, or you will be doing the job over again. Many painters and homeowners alike seem confused when selecting caulk for this siding. It has been my experience that you should be using caulks that comply with either ASTM C 834 or ASTM C 920. Applying a caulk that falls in this category is doing so within the manufacturers written instructions.

I personally prefer using an elastomeric caulk on my customer’s homes. Elastomeric caulks are made for masonry substrate surfaces. Sherwin Williams carries a product called Shermax Super Stretch Elastomeric Caulk that I find works well with Hardie Plank Siding. It has the elasticity to handle the constant expanding and contracting of Hardie Plank. All my crews are required to use this product and I see few problems with caulk separation.

One common problem that many homeowners find is the Hardie Plank itself was installed improperly. At least a 1/8 inch gap between siding and trim should be left by the installer to allow for a proper amount of caulk to be applied. The 1/8 inch gap is in accordance with caulking manufacturers written instructions. (leave 1/8″ gap between siding, trim and butt joints so adequate caulk can be applied.)

If less than 1/8 inch gap is available to apply caulk, then the caulk is too thin to handle the amount of stretching it must endure. I have seen Elastomeric Caulk separate where less than a 1/8 inch of a gap existed in the siding joints. Owens Corning also sells a very good caulk for this type application.

The last point I want to make is there are solutions to this common annoyance. As a painter it is your responsibility to deliver a product and service that will last. As a homeowner make sure you discuss your painter’s plans on how he is going to solve this common problem with Hardie Plank. This action will go a long way toward avoiding loss of time and money.

Nicky Taylor CEO of Painters Flair. Our web site is loaded with info and links. We have information for both homeowners and house painters.

Why do two colors, put one next to the other, sing? Can one really explain this? no. Just as one can never learn how to paint. Pablo Picasso

23Mar2017

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