Painting a house--preparation setbacks

[ohiofarmer 3,156]

 Well, fellas, I had a friend buy a house that he wants to update for his retirement in a few years.  It did not look bad at all, and in fact it has pretty good bones at about 20 years old. I went at it pretty quickly, spraying the ceilings, but the first coat of Sherwin Williams from Lowes just did not cover so great.  I went to the pro store for Sherwin Williams and got their better ceiling paint that contractors use.

 

 I went with Duration paint by SW and even though very expensive, it did not cover evenly on the test wall and took two coats. Our new plan is to use their proLoc primer tinted to the finish color. It only takes one coat of finish over the primer and looks like a million   it seems that the house was painted to look good for staging the sale and the existing paint was so chalky that it pulled the life out of the finish paint. So two coats on walls and ceilings and walls on 1600 sq feet of house. I sprayed some ceilings with an airless and also used a power roller on the airless --depending on the size of the room and masking requirements

 

 There was so many dirt nibs in the old paint layers that I took an orbital [electric] body sander to quickly remove them. now we are on track for a quality job..I am also repairing a lot of cracks due to not enough nails in the metal drywall corners. I cut the drywall at the crack and cut a vee in the drywall bedding compound to expose a place to add screws to stabilize the corner bead. Then it is sticky mesh tape that is further glued down with a coat of primer. once the primer dries, we repair the surface with a coat of plaster based drywall mud that DOES NOT SHRINK and dries hard enough to sand in about 6 hours.  I have some pretty good skills with drywall finishing and that helps.

 

 There is easily as much time spent prepping the house as painting it. Nail pops, repairing holidays in the drywall finish and such things as all the painting mistakes made through the years. The Pro-Loc primer goes on quickly and smooth with a 6" mini-roller. if I had a helper, I might consider power rolling the primer and back rolling with the mini roller.  .

 

 Then it is on to new engineered hardwood floors and a new kitchen......

[KC9KAS 4,741]

Sounds like you are very busy with this project.

Our old house has a lot of "nail-pops" and cracked corners. I think a lot of the problem was it was installed, and finished with very high humidity and when it dried out this was the results. Also, I think a lot of screws broke due to driving them into 100 year old oak studs.

[ohiofarmer 3,156]

  According to construction manuals, using too long a screw can make the problem worse. lets say the screw penetrates 1.25" into the stud. If that stud shrinks a little, [the point of the screw does not move] any pressure on the wall from the room side will press the drywall  against the tiny amount that the stud has shrunk..Screws or nails that miss or barely hit the edge of a stud also cause problems. i do think that setting style joint compound is superior to air dry 'mud' as possibly more resistant to pops, but have no research to back it up

 

 Gluing the drywall to the studs can help.  Housing construction extra steps or attempts a quality that is hidden rarely make it past the drawing board. When i frame a wall, I always take the time to put the crown of the stud the same direction and always save the best ones for straight corners, doors, and windows. If I cannot find straight wall studs, I buy 16 foot 2x4's because they come from bigger trees and are naturally more stable.  I have a lifetime of simple tricks that result in better work at hardly any additional cost, but  I am getting too old to be on the jobsite every day..

 

 i mentioned before that i helped a Navy vet get a rental house ready and it is now producing income for him. I had to look the other way and keep my mouth shut a number of times, but the house is fine for its intended purpose...I am thinking we have at  least one self employed contractor [Jack] on here who seems to know his stuff....

[Mirage276 9]

On 9/16/2018 at 9:37 PM, ohiofarmer said:

  According to construction manuals, using too long a screw can make the problem worse. lets say the screw penetrates 1.25" into the stud. If that stud shrinks a little, [the point of the screw does not move] any pressure on the wall from the room side will press the drywall  against the tiny amount that the stud has shrunk..Screws or nails that miss or barely hit the edge of a stud also cause problems. i do think that setting style joint compound is superior to air dry 'mud' as possibly more resistant to pops, but have no research to back it up

 

 Gluing the drywall to the studs can help.  Housing construction extra steps or attempts a quality that is hidden rarely make it past the drawing board. When i frame a wall, I always take the time to put the crown of the stud the same direction and always save the best ones for straight corners, doors, and windows. If I cannot find straight wall studs, I buy 16 foot 2x4's because they come from bigger trees and are naturally more stable.  I have a lifetime of simple tricks that result in better work at hardly any additional cost, but  I am getting too old to be on the jobsite every day..

 

 i mentioned before that i helped a Navy vet get a rental house ready and it is now producing income for him. I had to look the other way and keep my mouth shut a number of times, but the house is fine for its intended purpose...I am thinking we have at  least one self employed contractor [Jack] on here who seems to know his stuff....

 

This is the kind of stuff I want to learn so bad.  We bought our first house last year (built in 1930) and i've already redone 2 rooms and painted another and we are pretty much fixing a lifetime of work that was someone doing the stuff themselves when maybe they shouldn't have.  I am so ready for a career change and i've been looking into trying to head towards carpentry with an emphasis on restoration and/or higher quality remodeling work, I hate the flipper and quick fix mentality.

[ohiofarmer 3,156]

10 hours ago, Mirage276 said:

 

This is the kind of stuff I want to learn so bad.  We bought our first house last year (built in 1930) and i've already redone 2 rooms and painted another and we are pretty much fixing a lifetime of work that was someone doing the stuff themselves when maybe they shouldn't have.  I am so ready for a career change and i've been looking into trying to head towards carpentry with an emphasis on restoration and/or higher quality remodeling work, I hate the flipper and quick fix mentality.

 Well, you can PM me your questions, and I will help you if I can

[ohiofarmer 3,156]

 I had a break through with the paint. I found out how close to the ceiling I can go without any overspray getting on the ceiling. Now I  just set up benches and planks for an entire wall and spray the paint on but not total coverage. It rolls in beautifully and with a wide mini roller, we are at less than an inch from the ceiling.I really believe that I can do a better job myself with the spray gun than I could with 2 guys and a power roller.

 

 Step 1 is cut in the ceiling with a guided pad and immediately backroll to get the proper texture. Step2 is take the benches to the next wall and spray and roll the first wall about 20 square feet at a time. Man, it goes fast. My big advantage  is all the floor covering comes out and new engineered hardwood goes in after the paint. The carpet is the drop cloth

  Tomorrow I plan to get an early start and go for about 90% of the house with the sprayer and roller and do the rest with conventional roller pan.I laid on two gallons yesterday, but 3 gallons in a day looks probable for tomorrow. the Homeowner let me buy the best primer and paint that Sherwin Wiliams sells, and that helps. I am looking forward to painting over nice primer to a good result

Edited September 20, 2018 by ohiofarmer