Give Me A New Coat

Nice? I’m so glad it’s finally over! I gave my doors a nice coat of glossy paint.

 

Many tell me painting the door is tough and it’s different from painting the walls. Door paints (for wood and metals) for the fact is oil based, which also means:

• You need to handle it faster than water based paints. Once it reaches the semi dried state, you won’t want to brush through it.
• It “bleeds” at the corners (I’ll show you how to minimize that).
• It’s messy and sticky
• The fumes are suffocating (it’s best you work in a well-ventilated place).
• To clean off any stains, you’ll have to use turpentine, which I find it quite damaging to my skin (advisable to use gloves handling this)

Well, it is tough, because I had to paint all 11 doors… :(

I can only manage 3 doors + frame in one day. Plus I took breaks in between before completion. I tried painting 2 days in a row, I ended up with muscle cramps in my fingers and a sore wrist!

In short, if you have newly polished parquets like mine, you’ll avoid all cost to step on the drips of paint from your prepared surface onto your floor. Cleaning it when it has fully dried is quite a time consuming task. Amidst the chaos, you’ll have to act fast to reduce visible brush strokes setting on your door… a lot to juggle right?

Let’s begin…..

Tools you’ll need:

Super must haves:

1)      Short haired roller sponge

See the sponge next to the gloves? This is the number #01 must haves in my list of door painting. Make sure it is the short haired types. It’s quite hard to find and most hardware shops sell only the standard ones. Also, buy a bunch of them. I never wash and reuse them because you’ll need to use a lot of turpentine to clean it, plus it’s a hassle to dispose the turpentine.

2)      Plenty of disposable gloves

3)      Natural haired paint brushes (works better than nylon ones)

4)      Odour-lite door paint (I’ve tried using the standard wood paint. I’ve not seen odourless types in the market though. Boy, the fumes were unbearable & I feel dizzy after breathing in the fumes for the whole day)

You’ll need lots of prep work as well:

Make sure you tape vital areas and protect the surface of your floors.

Take note if you use newspapers, have it thick enough so that the paint won’t seep through. Remember, it’s not like wall paint.

Get rid of any peeling paint, stickers, and stains by sanding that off lightly. If you want, you can also give your door a wipe before painting (I did for mine).

After painting, make sure to leave the tape 1-2 days at the corners to completely dry and stop the “bleeding” process. Look at the screw up of my first painted door. I didn’t expect the “bleeding” to continue after 1-2hrs of painting, but it seems like it did. It’s still there and I’m having a hard time removing it.

Some pointers when painting doors:

1)      Take out excess paint from your brush before painting

a.       This will reduce dripping paint onto the floor

b.      It reduces “bleeding”

2)      You’ll need 2 coats to have an even colour. If the base of your door is a dark colour, you may need 3 or more coats. It’ll be better is you can sand down the door a little, but I’m too lazy to do so. Just make sure that coat 1-2 is completely dried before putting on the 3-4 coats.

3)      While painting the 2^nd coat, check on “bleeding” at corners & brush them off lightly before it dries.

4)      Always wear gloves! In my first attempt, I didn’t despite my mum telling me. I had paint all over my hands and soles of my feet! Best part was, I forgot about it and touched other things in the house!!! It became a mess!

5)      If you accidently drip/ stain places where you don’t want the paint to be, get a ragged cloth and quickly clean it while it’s still in its liquid form. (In the picture above, I’m really having a hard time as the paint has already dried. Smart me thought I could use the scrapper to scrape it out… I just made it worse!)

I always paint the areas which my roller sponge cannot reach with a brush first. Like the frame, patterned areas of the door and corners. My record is painting 3 doors a day, so I’ll make sure to maximize the use of my sponge rollers.  I didn’t wait for the paint to dry before painting on the second coat. The roller sponge is good as it doesn’t leave brush patterns on the door. It also gives an even coat of paint without much dripping and splashing droplets of paint out (provided you roll out the excess).

I’m pretty happy with the results. It feels like having a new shiny door now!

If you’re attempting it, try out my method and take note on the pointers. I screwed up 2 doors before getting it right. Lastly, you really need a lot of patience. In my opinion, painting the doors take more effort than the wall.

Good luck!

Monkey Business (Part 2)

The scaffolds are off!! My electrician came to fix the support for the chandelier and my feature wall is finally done! :)

My contractor really did a great job in concealing the wire. The wall that I painted the wallpaper paint is where the hacking & plastering took place. The wire went all the way up, he cut two holes in the ceiling board and plastered it up. I was afraid that they will use the conduit along the ceiling board, it's good that they didn't use that method. Smart!

View from 1st floor

View from 2nd floor

Scaffold removing process:

It's tricky at the top as they need to turn in different angles to get the metal planks & long pieces of wood down. You don't want these to bang and hit your newly painted walls right? 

This time, the scaffolding took half the time to be removed. The aftermath is another tiring job... Cleaning! 

X'O

Monkey Business (Part 1)

Ok, my scaffolding came on the 31 Aug. I was thinking that it was the metal type but it's wooden scaffolds. Initially I thought that it wasn't that stable... Boy, I was wrong. It's really solid. What really impressed me was that the people who put the scaffold together were old uncles. They are really fit!!

See the wallpaper paint that was done halfway on first floor? That's what I got the scaffold for. To continue all the way up and to install a chandelier. 

I always thought that we have the luxury to see and wait before deciding what to do. When the construction was going on (laying of floor tiles), we thought, " Shall we do the extension for the 2nd floor or shall we not?". After much "thinking" (after when the construction ended), we decided to scrap the idea and install a chandelier instead.

Word of advise - get all your hacking and dirty works done way before your painting, doing the final stuff and having all your new furniture in your place. I was so worried that our new floor tiles would be scratched by the debris from the hacking to conceal the wiring and worst of all, the DUST & Wood shavings (from the scaffold)!!! OMG, it was everywhere and I had a hard time cleaning it up! I hate the mess and I'm highly allergic to super dusty places.  X(

Ok, that's me now painting the wallpaper paint. I'm not the least afraid of heights, but I'm afraid if I fall. There's safety gear, but it's just a safety line attached to my hips and onto the scaffold. At times I have to stand at the wooden joining at the edge to reach difficult places.

My mum took a picture of me from first floor. I feel like a monkey, climbing up and down the scaffold. The hardest part was the top extreme edges of this panel. That being said, I had a good work out of sit ups, yoga and squats today.

Stay tuned for the final picture of result when the scaffolds are removed!   ;)

Wallpaper Alternative

There's the craze about Wallpapers now. I chose two types for two rooms and decided to try this Wallpaper paint for the remaining room & hall.  Actually, the savings is quite a lot. It's more than 70% savings from the cost of the Wallpaper.

The Wallpaper paint comes in a full set of Primer, Top Coat and Kit set. 

Honestly, I feel that the kit set is a waste of money. It's just a jumbo ice-cream stick for stirring the paint, a plastic scraper and a nylon paint brush. You can easily substitute the stirrer with any long scrap wooden stick. As for the plastic scraper, a hard plastic sheet can easily do the trick and for the nylon brush, just make sure to get a short, stiff one. 

I included some safety gear and other tools that are used to prepare the wall.

Yes, there's an idiot's guide how to DIY that comes with the kit. It's surprisingly easy.

Step 1: Apply 2 coats of Primer & allow to dry for 2hrs
Step 2: Apply top coat using criss-crossed strokes
Step 3: After 15min, use spatula to smooth over semi-dried coat (be gentle on this, on my first try I ended up with scratch marks OR best, just omit this part)

One coat of primer is good enough unless your previous wall colour is an intense colour, you'll need two coats of primer to cover that. For mine, I used just one coat. After drying for 2hrs, I continued with the top coat.

Walla! My completed project.

I find that one coat of Top Coat is good enough. 1 coat of primer + 1 coat of top coat give a very good contrast and texture. It's my first project and I wanted a perfect wall, so I did two coats of top coat. 

The second coat made the colour more intense and covered up most of the contrast. I was a little disappointed, however lucky for me, this room is very bright and the sunlight brought out the shine from the metallic parts of the paint.

If I knew that this paint will give such an effect and cost just a fraction, I would not have chosen Wallpaper. You can save quite a lot. It took me a day to do this by myself. Well, my other half is especially anal about doing a good job "preparing" the wall. So that the paint will stay and last longer... yes, yes, I got it. So, much of my time is devoted in "preparation".

I'm happy with the end result. :))