Thank you, previous home owners

Thank you, previous home owners. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to spend my weekend (and I am taking tomorrow off work) attempting to paint the living room. Twenty hours of work later and I just put on my first coat of paint. You did some amazing things when you painted the living room that wonderful Soylent Green color.

For future reference, here are some prep and painting tips:

1. Remove wallpaper before painting

2. If you do remove the wallpaper, remove it all and do not leave the paper backing stuck to the wall and paint over it.

3. When you do remove the wallpaper, take it all the way down to the paint and then STOP. Do not scrape any further. If you see a dark empty space, you have removed too much.

4. It was a good idea to fill in the holes with spackle. It’s also a good idea to sand those areas down. Especially those built up a quarter inch from the surface.

5. If you are a good painter, you can cut in the edges without tape. If you are an OK painter, you tape every single edge. If you are you, use tape, paint over tape, and leave the painted tape on wall.

6. When finished with a brush, some wash it out. Most just throw them away. A very rare few might throw it in the return air vent. You are a rare few.

In the middle of my home improvement, Kit stopped over and brought McDonalds. We sat, hunched over in the kitchen at a temporarily relocated coffee table and swapped John B stories. Later, he helped to sand down the walls and clean up.

Thanks Kit.

Idiots.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

As a new homeowner, I had to laugh. It's amazing how fast a home becomes a house of horrors. Our previous owners were kind enough to paint the bedroom magenta. After 3 coats of primer and 2 coats of paint, we've hired a P.I. to hunt them down so we could "thank" them properly.

Oh, bonus: They were also nice enough to duck tape the vents shut in that room..

RickySilk said...

Brings back memories.

That primer will get you crazy high too, and not in a good way.

HolyJuan said...

I feel like I smoked a pack of Lucky Strikes. My lungs are muddy.

Last night, Miss Sally came home and was almost knocked back out the door by the smell of paint. She asked me how I could stand it. I didn't really smell a thing.

I have one more coat of off white to put on the waiscoating. Shit's got more nooks and crannies than an English Muffin with acne scars.