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Painting An Iron Gate

  
  
  

spray paintingIf you live in an association, at some point you will get a letter saying you have to paint your gate. In iron gate is a little different than a wood gate in that there is a lot of open space. I wouldn’t want to use a brush to paint it, nor would I want to break out the airless sprayer, but a spray can works well.

The problem is that most of the paint that you spray will end up being spraying on everything beyond the gate with only a small amount of paint contacting the gate. There isn’t a lot you can do about that though, but you can protect the area behind the gate from getting paint on it.

Cut a piece of cardboard to fit your needs. I find that two feet by two feet seems to work well. You can hold the cardboard behind the gate as you spray paint. The cardboard will get paint on it rather that the house or landscaping behind it.

Use light passes rather than one heavy pass of paint. Follow the bars of the gate with successive passes until you get a good coat of paint on it. Your finger will get fatigued by continually pressing down on the button, so you might consider switching fingers. They make a trigger that snaps on to the top of a spray can, but I don’t much care for them as the ones I’ve used break easily.

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Painting An Accent Wall Is Cheap Improvement

  
  
  

painting accent wallIf you are looking for an improvement you can do in an afternoon, why not paint an accent wall? This is nothing more that choosing a wall or two and painting it a different color, usually one that stands out from the others. There are no hard and fast rules in this…you can use your imagination and go as bold as you want.

Many new homes are painted “builder white” and need a little life in those walls. Painting is cheap and fast. I would go as far as saying painting is the biggest bang for the buck in the world of home improvement. It’s cheap, fast, and you don’t need years of experience to do it. Furthermore, if you mess something up, you can paint over it. So as long as you don’t drip paint on the floor, it’s a pretty safe way to go.

Many paint schemes today involve painting the walls one color (think coffee & cream) and the ceilings, doors, and baseboards another color (think white). This has become a very common paint combo. You don’t even need to go that far. You could paint a wall a brownish color to match your bedspread. Go crazy and paint 2 of the walls the same color. Imagine what painting 2 adjacent walls, or opposing walls would look like. It’s a custom paint job in an afternoon.

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Handyman Says Matching Paint Can Be Tough

  
  
  

handyman paintMany of the handyman jobs we do require touch up paint of some kind. The act of painting is easy. Getting a good match on the paint however, can be tough. Even if the original paint is at the property, applying it to the wall may not match. Some painted walls get sunlight exposure and some do not. If the home has smokers in it, that can certainly make it so the paint won’t match. So don’t be surprised when you take paint out of the can and it doesn’t exactly match.

You can certainly take a sample from the wall and have it computer matched at a paint store. It may not exactly match but should be awfully close. In an inconspicuous area, you can barely cut through the painted drywall paper and peel up a piece at least the size of a quarter. When you get the paint matched, fill in the void with joint compound, texture and paint it.

Probably the best way to do touch up painting is to paint the entire surface from wall to wall. Dabbing paint over problem areas is always noticeable, but if you paint the entire surface, the problem will go away. Most people won’t notice a slight color variation at the corner or edge of a wall.

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When Painting Doors Should I Remove Hardware?

  
  
  

painting doorsPainting doors is not a glamorous job, but questions arise about whether or not you should remove the door hardware before painting. It all comes down to personal preference and whether you thing masking the hardware is faster than removing it.

I would not recommend removing the door off of the hinges. So the quick answer for the hinges is to either paint them or cover them with tape. Personally, I don’t like how painted hinges look, especially if you have attractive hinges.

If you are using a sprayer, you will need to either remove the door knob and latch or cover them with masking tape and paper. If you asked 100 painters which way they preferred, you would probably find that 50% of them would cover them, and 50% would remove them. If you choose to remove them, you will need to cover them or place them in a room not being painted as the dry fall might land on them and you will have some cleaning to do.

Using tape and paper to cover them is fine, but if you don’t completely cover the surface, you will be cleaning paint off of the unit. Using standard masking tape works fine, but it is sometimes difficult to remove and will often leave a residue behind. Painters tape is more expensive, but it removes easier and doesn’t leave behind a residue, which will lessen your clean-up time.

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Caulking Makes For A Perfect Paint Job

  
  
  

caulking baseboardIf you are getting ready to do some painting, caulking will make your life easier and make your project look better. The benefits of caulking are apparent when you are changing colors at a transition.

Having multiple colors on a wall and trim has always been very popular. We’ve all seen model homes where the molding is white and the wall is, for example, coffee color. It looks great and caulking plays a role in the nice appearance.

When baseboard is installed, there will be a separation between the wall and the top of the baseboard. If the wall is textured (and most are) it will be nearly impossible to get a crisp clean line separating the two colors of paint. This is where caulking saves the day. Using paintable caulking, lay down a thin bead at this separation. Less is better. Use a caulking gun and cut the tip of the caulking tube at a 45-degree angle at the 1/8” line. Gently squeeze a small amount along the length of the top of the baseboard. Then go back, wet your finger, and smooth out the line by slightly pushing as you drag your finger along the edge. Do not lift your finger until you get to the corner or you will have a noticeable mark when you paint.

Let everything dry and then you can paint the area. Use painter’s tape to mark out the paint line. Place the edge of the tape on the caulking and when you lift the tape after painting you will have a perfect line.

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Scraping And Painting The Eves

  
  
  

painting scraperPainting jobs are pretty common where we have large variances in the weather and lots of sun. Homeowners associations have a field day writing up homeowners for peeling paint on the eves of their homes.

Get out the extension ladder and get ready to go to work. Scraping the wood eves is not difficult, but I would recommend eye protection. Small paint scrapings will fly everywhere. It’s also a good idea to cover the ground beneath the eves to make cleanup easy. When you are done, you will find paint chips everywhere…in your shirt, in your hair, down your back, etc.

There are two ways to scrape the eves. Either you can scrape a section and go back and paint it, or you can scrape the entire eve and paint the entire eve. I prefer to scrape the entire area and then go back and paint it. This way just seems faster and cleaner. Also, you can use the traditional putty knife to scrape the paint, but I would get a real paint scraper…one with a strong handle and a replaceable blade. This style makes quick work of scraping.

When its time to paint, use a mini-roller and pan. These are very small rollers that sit on a frame with a long handle. They can get into areas that larger rollers and brushes can’t get into. They don’t hold a lot of paint, so you will have to reload more often, but they lay on a smooth coat of primer and paint so you won’t have to repeat this job anytime soon.

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Great Painting Results With Painter’s Tape

  
  
  

painting tapeWhen painting, you will undoubtedly use tape to mask off an area that you don’t want painted. You can use traditional masking tape, or you can use painter’s tape. I love painters tape, but for big jobs, it gets very expensive.

Traditional masking tape is cheap and thin. It tears rather easily and can make removing it a real challenge. It is very sticky and has great “bite” on whatever surface it is sticking to. Masking tape is the choice for typical production paint jobs.

Painters tape is certainly more expensive but offers several benefits. It is thicker than masking tape and tends not to tear as easily. Consequently, you can remove the entire length of it with one pull. It also keeps cut lines very crisp. Paint can tend to creep under regular masking tape, but not so with painters tape. It can happen, but not as often as masking tape. If you want to keep cut lines crisp, use the rounded back of a spoon and push down along the edges of the tape. This will help prevent unwanted paint from getting underneath your tape and ruining a line.

For smaller jobs where you require a clean cut line between colors, painters tape is the way to go.

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Painting With A Mini-Roller

  
  
  

painting mini rollerPainting is one of those necessary chores that I try to put off as long as possible. There are lots of different tools to help you paint a variety of items.

A customer called and needed her fascia painted because her homeowner’s association didn’t like the way it looked. Sure enough, the paint was peeling and it was unattractive. The exposed portion of the fascia was only about 10 inches and had the lip of the roof covering just a portion of it. The perfect tool for this job is a mini-roller. These are paint rollers that are very small in diameter that will make quick work of painting fascias. Not to be gross, but these are also called tampon rollers for obvious reasons.

Mini-rollers use special frames that can be longer than normal frames. After scraping the old paint from the fascia, the board will be very smooth. You can use the mini-roller and paint using horizontal strokes and cover a three foot swath very quickly. Since the roller is smaller and holds less paint, it is less likely you will drip paint, although you will have to reload paint more often. The smaller diameter of the roller will also allow you to paint right up to the roof edge overhanging the fascia board without having to use a brush for touchups.

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Should I Prime Before Painting?

  
  
  

paintingPriming before painting can be looked upon in a couple of different ways. Priming the walls lays down a nice base in which to paint your final color. It can cover dark colors, stains, dirt and whatnot so that your paint shows it’s color nicely. The color should be very consistent and predictable.

The downside is that it is also a pain to paint the same surface twice (or more), and it adds to the cost of the job both in dollars and time. A good quality primer will cost more than paint, particularly if you are buying paint in 5 gallon buckets.

There are products that have primer and paint mixed in so that you theoretically don’t have to paint several coats, but these are fairly expensive. From a cost perspective, it would be cheaper to use multiple coats of paint than a primer and paint all-in-one product, but it should save you some time.

If you choose not to prime before painting, you may end up painting several coats of paint anyway, as the first coat will act as a primer, but it will be harder to delineate where one swath of the roller left off and where the other should begin. Painting on top of a white primer base is pretty obvious.

For a more predictable, consistent finished product, priming before painting is the way to go. However, if you are looking to save a little money, you could try foregoing the priming.

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Handyman Tip for Airless Spray Painting

  
  
  

airless spray shieldIf you've ever used an airless sprayer to paint a house or trim, you know it can make quick work of a large project. That is, after you have spent hours covering everything that you don't want painted. That is what takes the time.

For jobs like spraying the exterior trim on a house, you can mask off the surface that you don't want painted or you can shield it using a paint shield. You can buy a paint shield that consists of a rectangular piece of sheet metal affixed to a broomstick. You can also use a piece of cardboard or whatever you have at hand. The trick is to place the shield snugly next to the surface you are painting in a consistent manner so you get a nice even paint line.

What ends up happening is that your paint shield will become so saturated with paint, you will be forced to stop and wipe off the paint before it runs off of the shield and drips where you don't want it to. Or you can throw away your piece of cardboard and get a new one.

I like the store-bought paint shields, but I would doctor it up a bit. My handyman tip is to cover the shield with several layers of masking paper secured by painter's tape. Layer the masking paper strips on top of each other so that when the paper becomes saturated, you simply tear off the saturated sheet and start spraying with the next clean sheet below. It will save you a lot of time.

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