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FAX: 703-550-3755
EMAIL: contact@bluedoorpainters.com
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“Blue Doors was the best price/service/value deal by far… Blue Doors will be our first call for our next painting project!”
MClean, VA
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Decorating High Rise Condominiums
Blue Door Painters did the wallpapering you see above inside of a condominium in Crystal City. The formerly dark-yellow room now looks MUCH bigger with these light reflecting colors.
Liberate your Arlington, VA condo with Outside-the-Box Interior Design
A homeowner out in the suburbs, or a farmer with a cute farmhouse in the hills, has a lot of options when it comes to remodeling. You can bash a wall out and put up an addition. You can raise the roof, finish the basement, add or cover windows. You can change your roof shingles and siding, you can put up a deck, you can landscape. All of these changes will transform the mood and the practical potential of your living space.
In Northern Virginia, however, a lot of us live in condominiums. Arlington County hosts some of the most affluent neighborhoods in the entire country, and the region’s popularity might account for its being voted by October 2008′s Business Week as the ‘Safest City to Weather a Recession’. However, at the current population density of Virginia’s smallest county, many of its citizens don’t have the luxury of a whole lot of extra space, and are proud to secure themselves a simple high-rise condominium. Neighborhoods like Rosslyn, Crystal City, Ballston, Courthouse, and Clarendon all contain a significant population dwelling in condos. There are a lot of perks to urban condo living; convenience, liberation from driving, utility efficiency, groundskeeping – but if there is something about your space that you don’t find satisfying, it is a whole lot harder to change it when you are confined to a small, box-shaped indoor area.
Fortunately, both architects and interior designers have expended years of creativity and expertise to address that very problem: how to make the most out of small spaces? The clever little cubicles spread throughout the IKEA showrooms provide an example of the public’s need for small space solutions. Owning a condo, while it isn’t the same as owning a single-family home complete with deck, driveway, and backyard, should still empower the homeowner to make the changes necessary to make a condo into a dream home.
The first step to creative condo remodeling is to clear your mind about what is actually there (square living room, narrow hallway, two boxy bedrooms), and sit down and think about what you want. Big, luxurious bathroom? Earthy hunting cabin? Airy, upscale balcony with a view and a cocktail bar? Good! No matter how ridiculous you think it might seem given the spatial reality of your Northern Virginia condo, it is very important to know what you want.
Next, you need to consider your long-term plans. Is this condo going to be your home, or is it more like a way station, an investment you made in the (hopefully improving) DC real estate market? If you intend your condo for resale in the near future, your design goals will be different than they would be for your long-term home. When condos are sold, they need to be staged in a certain way to make them appeal to the widest possible audience. Decorating a home for staging requires creating an ambience that is as impersonal as possible, so that potential buyers see themselves living there, not you. If you would like to come up with a design scheme that maximizes both your enjoyment of the space and its resale value, jot down both what you would like and what you think would create the widest possible appeal, and see if you can come up with a happy medium.
Finally, you need to come up with a design plan. There are two levels of remodeling that you can undertake in the process of transforming your space. The first is architectural. It may seem like a condo’s layout just is the way it is, but in most buildings you can actually alter the interior plan of the condo, changing the position of walls, doors, and sometimes even windows! If you want that great big bathroom, for example, you can take out part of the bedroom or walk-in closet adjacent and donate that square footage to the cause.
However, due to the limited area, every choice you make will inevitably involve sacrificing something else. This is where interior design comes in. With interior design, you can use clever techniques to create the feeling of what you want, without dramatically altering the floor plan.
Color, for example, can be used to contour a space, making it feel larger or smaller as the case may be. Put light colors in places you want to look bigger, and dark colors in places you want to stand out. If you want more light, consider lighting and mirrors, as an alternative to windows. If you want a hunting lodge, make a faux fireplace out of brick veneer with a little inset gas fire (these come in all sizes), mount a sturdy shelf over it, throw a bearskin on the floor, a gun on the shelf, and mount your favorite buck overtop. If you want a chic, upscale look, consider hip color combinations: gray, pale blue, bright orange, and chrome accessories, and maximize whatever balcony you do have.
Living in Northern Virginia is exciting and fulfilling, but living in a condo can bring about its own unique challenges. Be proactive in creating an interior that you really love. Blue Door Painters is here to help.
Painting 102: Anatomy of a Roller Stroke
After you find a roller with a sturdy frame, make sure you get the right container for the job, an extender and a roller cover that matches your paint and substrate.
Detailed Instructions on How To Use a Roller from Washington, DC Area Contractor
Presumably you’ve been following along on our detailed description of how to paint a surface, and you’re now looking at an area with all the edges and corners masterfully cut in with a brush (in accordance with our instructions). If not, take a minute to check out Painting 101: Anatomy of a Brushstroke, to get you caught up to that point. If you’re just curious for some advice on how to wield your roller, you’ve come to the right place.
First of all, while there isn’t quite as much variety in rollers as there is in brushes, you still need to take some care to purchase high quality equipment. The cheap all-in-one roller set-ups will not usually give you the same longevity or smoothness of finish as a pro set-up; and the rip-off is, the pro set-ups aren’t really that much more expensive! Here is what you’ll need:
1) A good sturdy roller frame. It should be expandable, with bearings at the sides and threads at the bottom, and made of strong, heavy-gauge wire. (Reusable)
2) An extender or thread-ended broom handle to help you reach out-of the way spots. (Reusable)
3) A paint container. While most hardware stores push paint trays, you can get more use, and better utility, out of a 5-gallon bucket with a vertical bucket-screen mounted inside it. The bucket can hold a lot more paint than a tray, allowing for less time between refills, it is easier to transport from spot to spot, or to cover if you need to take a lunch break, and the vertical tray draws extra paint off the roller more effectively than the nearly-horizontal tray. Most professionals use a bucket and screen set-up; there is no reason why you shouldn’t, too. (Reusable).
4) High-quality roller covers that match your paint and substrate. The general rule of thumb for rolling is, the rougher the substrate, and the more viscous the paint, the longer the roller nap. Smoother surfaces and thicker paint can be rolled with a smoother, short-sheared cover, while rough surfaces and runny paint will benefit from a longer-napped cover. Good quality covers have a plastic core, rather than cardboard. Cardboard cores can start to soften after absorbing paint, and the glue holding the nap can dissolve in certain solvents, causing the roller to fall apart halfway through the job. Each paint you use needs its own roller cover.
Once you have your equipment, load the roller by submerging it halfway into the paint, then rolling it up the screen. Repeat this motion several times, until the roller is saturated and nearly dripping with paint.
Next: how to actually roll your paint? There are several competing strategies for creating the smoothest possible distribution of paint with a roller, all of which expand upon the principle of “wet-edge”. Wet-edge is the theory that a fresh stroke of paint should always be overlapped with the wettest paint from the previous stroke, so that the paint dries to form a continuous film. With a roller, using wet-edge techniques can avoid both seams and roller marks; two common imperfections of an amateur paint job. Here we are going to describe the classic ‘W’ technique.
Start from one corner of your surface, about six inches from each edge. Move your roller up and down to create a large ‘W’ shape, filling in the center of a large section. Once you have your W, use small strokes to spread out the paint, filling in the remaining unpainted space. You can leave paint stokes and roller marks at this point in the process, the goal being to get as much wet paint on a large surface area as possible. Next, reload your roller and move to an adjacent section of your surface, and repeat the process, creating another W and filling it in, overlapping the old section slightly with your small strokes to fill in the margins. Finally, without reloading your roller, go over both sections together, smoothing out lumps, eliminating roller marks, and making the paint film continuous.
Since it covers so much area so quickly, and since it usually marks the end of a job, rolling is a very satisfying process. Invest in the right equipment, purchase the right paint, and by the end of this step, you will be ready to celebrate a beautifully coated surface and a job well done!
Painting 101: The Anatomy of a Brush Stroke
Experienced painters, like the one shown above, have steady hands and lack the need for painters tape to get a clean-cut edge.
Detailed Description of the Painting Process From a Washington DC Area Contractor
Many handyman articles will tell you the basics about paint: what it is, what types there are, common pitfalls associated with it. They will tell you what paint to buy, what colors to pick, what equipment to use, how many coats to apply, and when to apply them. They will tell you how to know if you made a mistake, how to deal with complications, and what steps to take to fix any errors. But when it comes time to get started painting your house, you may still find yourself staring dubiously into a freshly opened can of paint, paintbrush gripped nervously in one hand, feeling a little bit unsure about your next move.
So what Blue Door Painters is going to share with you today is exactly how to make that first move: a single brushstroke of paint.
You’re going to start your project with brushing. That’s true for almost every project; a typical room, for example, will need to have the edges and corners of the paint area cut in with a paintbrush before the larger open surface area is rolled. For corners in between two surfaces that are going to be painted, the whole corner should be brushed, up to 3 inches out on each wall. For edges between a paint surface and a non-paint surface, applying painters’ tape on the non-paint surface prior to brushing will make your project easier and less stressful, (though experienced painters with reliably steady hands sometimes skip that step). The paint surface should be coated up to 3″ from the edge with a paintbrush prior to rolling. For other surfaces, like trim or stair steps, you may do the entire project with a brush, lacking the surface area to justify a roller (although in some cases a mini-roller will yield a better finish). For these, if there is a large enough space to distinguish the edges from the center, the edges should still be coated first.
So your paint can should be open, and your paint adequately mixed (if you detect any irregularity in the color, stir thoroughly with a paint stirrer, making sure to distribute the pigment all the way through the depth of the can). You should have a paintbrush – ideally, one picked specifically for your type of paint and substrate – in hand. Now it is time to dip your brush into the paint for the first time. Which brings up an often overlooked – but extremely important – question: how to load your paintbrush.
In order to get a thorough coating, you need to make sure that your paintbrush is completely saturated with paint on the inside. This means in between the bristles, where you can’t see it. Paint nested in between the bristles will release slowly and evenly over the course of your strokes, creating an even finish. You don’t want your brush overly saturated with paint on the outside of the bristles, however, because this extra paint will spread in unexpected directions, and will create drips and sags in your finish that can be challenging to correct.
So in order to load your paint onto the brush in the ideal manner, you should stab your paintbrush gently into the can of paint a couple times, working the paint up in between the bristles. After repeating this vertical motion your brush will be filled, and you need to remove excess paint from the bottom and outside of the brush. To do so, first hold it up for a couple seconds so that loose paint can drain. Once all remaining paint is staying on the brush in spite of gravity, run the bottom edge of the brush gently along the rim of the paint can or bucket, smoothing off the excess. If you are cutting an edge, repeat that motion with the face of at least one of the sides of your brush, wiping the paint on the outside of that surface against the rim. You should be left with a paintbrush that is saturated with paint on the inside, but is not dripping and is, if intended for an edge, cleared off on one face.
Start your brushstrokes at a corner of your surface, so that you can work outward from there is a continuous line. When you start the stroke, watch how far your paint spreads, and how thickly it is applied. Some types of paint (like semigloss) will be more viscous than others: DO NOT be tempted to spread this extra-runny paint more thickly to make up for the apparent lack of coverage. Doing so will lead to drips or paint sagging as the thick, runny paint fails to hold up to gravity for as long as it takes to dry. The only way to fix sags is by waiting for the paint to dry completely, sanding them down, and recoating that area – so prevention is really the best approach.
When your brush first touches the surface, you only need to press gently, because there will be paint on the outside of the brush. As you continue your stroke, however, you will need to increase the pressure, so that the paint from the inside of the brush comes out. The brush should bend gently in the opposite direction of your stroke, squeezing out the internal paint, and your grip should allow maximal control of both the direction and the pressure of the stroke. Use a full-hand grip for larger brushes, and a pencil grip for smaller ones. After a few tries, you will learn how your particular paint flows through your particular brush, so that you can perfect the exact right motion to ensure a stroke that is smooth, even, and the desired width.
Your next stroke should start off right where your previous stroke left off. This is called the ‘wet edge’, and it is a key principle in paint technique. Matching wet paint to wet paint usually causes two different strokes to blend together into a continuous whole, rather than developing an unsightly seam. If you find that you can still see a seam, wait until your next stroke is complete and the brush is relatively dry, but the paint is still wet, then lightly brush at the seam with the dry brush until the coat looks even.
When cutting in an edge, place the ‘clean’ side of the brush (meaning, the one you wiped against the paint can) against the edge. If it is taped, you will be able to press it firmly; if it is not taped, you will need to watch closely to find the perfect placement to give a thorough coating that doesn’t blot over to the non-paint surface. Working non-taped edges goes a lot more slowly, which is why taping is almost always worth the perceived trouble it causes.
Okay, now you’ve had your ‘next move’ described down to minute detail – and the 500 or so moves you make after that will all be the same until your brushed area is complete (that’s one thing about painting – it is a very repetitive process, and it gets easier as you get more experienced!) In our next blog, we’ll tackle the anatomy of the paintbrush’s big brother – the paint roller – and you will have your entire paint process laid out before you.
Color Combo Special #3: Analogous Color Schemes
Analogous color schemes are taken from a 1/4 piece of the color wheel with varying hues, values and saturations.
Analogous color schemes provide a classic balance between variety and similarity that is both timeless and universally appealing. While monochromatic schemes might be the #1 most reliable color strategy for conservative purposes, analogous schemes are a good way to add a little bit of flavor without departing too far from the beaten path of easy-to-match colors.
How is an analogous color scheme developed? Using a near-identical technique to the monochromatic scheme, good analogous schemes are built upon the foundation of one initial color. Whether this first color is a personal favorite, or a pre-existing ‘given’ color in the architecture, it will be the color around which the rest of the color scheme pivots.
Working from there, you locate that color on the color wheel, and then take a look at its immediate neighbors. With blue, for example, green and purple are the immediate neighbors, and hues from the green and/or purple range could therefore be used in any combination to create an analogous color scheme. With a range of roughly 1/4 of the color wheel available, you are free to pick and choose the hues, values, and saturations that you find the most appealing. While you need to be aware of how much contrast you are adding to your composition by varying the value and saturation (i.e., using bright colors, versus pastels, versus dull earth tones), you can be pretty confident that most combinations you come up with, provided they are confined to that tight segment of the color wheel, will be pleasing and unlikely to clash.
One of the benefits to analogous color schemes is that it can offer a great degree of internal variation while maintaining a constant mood, tone, or psychological ‘temperature’. A ‘warm-toned’ analogous scheme can have deep oranges, dull reds, and bright yellows – each underscoring the warmth of the composition in a distinct way. A ‘cool-toned’ analogous scheme, alternatively, might employ blues, greens, and violets with the opposite psychological effect, but an equal degree of internal consistency.
The analogous color scheme is the first color strategy that we’ve discussed so far that allows for some creative variation, putting the final choice to your discretion. Using your natural aesthetic instincts is a good way to choose which specific color alignments really click, and which are discordant. Make sure to envision the colors in the proper proportions, and covering a large surface area, when you are making the final decision. Remember, there is no harm in purchasing a few quarts of paint and coloring in a sample area – sometimes you can be very surprised by how a color looks when spread out over a large surface!
If the choices involved in crafting an analogous color scheme are too much for you, you might want to consider looking into a monochromatic scheme, or turning to our complimentary color consultation service for support. If, on the other hand, you like the challenge and the creative potential involved in the analogous scheme, and you’d like to learn some techniques that allow for even more creativity, stay tuned for our next Color Combo feature: the Complementary Color Scheme!
Washington DC’s 2012 Extended Spring and the Homeowner
If the simple sight of this picture makes you want to sneeze, you may want to brace your home for the extended allergy season.
What does this year’s unusual weather mean for the Washington, DC homeowner?
We’ve all been shaking our heads about the weather this winter in the Washington, DC area. We braced ourselves for our usual two and a half months of unpleasant cold, windy, and wet . . . that never came. Instead, we found ourselves sneezing with allergies in late February and snapping photos of the Cherry Blossoms around March 20th.
The upside is – well – four months of Spring. Complaining about the current cold spell is half-hearted at best; being well past the equinox, we know the cold weather can’t really last. We’re out of the danger zone: Washington, DC has officially cheated winter this year.
The downside is that our local ecology (and arguably, our psychology as well) is adjusted to expect a period of downtime. Without winter to make us rest, the flora and fauna of Washington, DC are apt to go a little bit overboard. The allergy season, for example, came earlier this year, will last longer, and is unusually virulent. Trees can afford to put energy into generating more pollen that they would usually have to expend weathering the winter. The bug season has already started, and by early July we are probably going to be shunning our backyards due to the unusually high insect populations we can expect with an extended breeding season. And finally, the data coming in from our financial markets is skewed. The local economy usually takes a little dip in the winter, which never came this year. Which is good for business at the moment – but may mean that we see an alarming slump during summer months when we’re usually booming, and that our selling seasons come at unexpected times.
What does this mean for the homeowner in 2012?
1. The hot home selling season will probably start early. After over five years of a major slump, there is some tentative evidence that the nationwide real estate market might be starting on an upswing. Each neighborhood in the DC area is different, but with interest rates low and home prices attractive, there is some reason to hope that 2012 might be a good year to try and get your home sold. Usually homeowners have March and April to get their remodeling and staging done, and then hit the market with open houses in late May and June. This year the earlybirds may have already started out of the gate with their groundwork, and be ready to start their open houses in late April. It isn’t too late to catch up, though; with the blooming season set a few weeks early it could be time to invest in a good landscaper, do a thorough exterior pressure-washing, get your home cleaned and decluttered, throw a fresh coat of paint up on your interior and exterior, and hit the market!
2. You may want to pay extra attention to your indoor air quality. First of all, allergies are greatly worsened if you inhale the allergens while sleeping. In addition to making sure you shower and wash your hair before going to bed at night, you may want to take extra precautions like tightening up your windows, pressure-washing the pollen off of the siding and hardscaping on your property, and removing your shoes when you enter your home so you don’t track pollen indoors. Of course, with the windows closed, it is a good idea to inspect your home for indoor air contaminants like mold or chemical VOCs. When air conditioning hits this summer, you want to make sure that all interior mold has been mitigated and any remodeling projects have taken advantage of products with low VOCs so that the air you breathe at night is clean. When flu system hits in the fall, you want to greet it with a healthy and well-rested respiratory system.
3. The battle against the bugs will be long and fierce. If you have been considering screening your porch, this might be just the right moment. If the screens on your windows and doors need repair, now is the time. And if you want extra protection against pests like ants, termites, and cockroaches, you may want to fortify your exterior with added caulking and coatings that contain natural insecticides as additives. You will probably have to bring out the big guns (read: pesticides) by the end of the summer, but the more effort you put into prevention, the less you will have to resort to chemicals that are expensive, unhealthy, and bad for the environment.
So enjoy the weather, make hay when the sun shines, and don’t forget to give your home a little TLC!
Color Combo Special #2: Monochromatic Schemes
This is an example of a very natural monochromatic color scheme. It's warm and inviting, isn't it?
Monochromatic schemes are probably the easiest way to “get it right” when it comes to color combinations. Practical for staging houses and other times when a tried-and-true method to create a simple, pleasing decor is what you want, monochromatic combinations follow a simple formula that gives you nearly guaranteed success.
That formula? Just pick one color. It could be your favorite color, the color that creates the mood you’re trying to inspire, or the color that will appeal to the widest possible audience. For staging purposes, it is usually good to go with a light-toned, space-creating neutral like white, cream, or beige. For personal decoration purposes, think of a color that you will really enjoy over a long span of time, and in many different moods.
Once you’ve picked your color, you get to do the fun part. Without varying the core color, or hue, in color classification lingo, create several different shades of that color by varying the value (lightness or darkness), and the chroma (brightness or dullness). You can start with a buttery cream, for example, and mix in black to create a darker umber color for one of the accent colors, and then turn up the intensity to create a bold, warm mustard yellow for another. As long as you stay within the same hue (or an extremely tight range), you can play with the value and the chroma almost indefinitely, and you will still end up with a pleasing color combination. The variation created by the shading will give your composition texture, but your colors are very unlikely to ever clash.
And there is actually a surprising range of effects you can create using a monochromatic scheme. For example, a blue-based scheme that starts with a main color of bright cornflower blue, and accents it with a strong navy and a shocking bright-sky color, is going to make a much bolder statement than a dull blue-gray that is accented with a paler blue-gray and some slate-colored trim, even though in both cases you have essentially an all-blue room.
Remember to take into account the other objects in your composition that will provide colors that you might not have predicted: your rugs, furniture, and other decorations in your interior, or your bricks, deck, patio, roof, and landscaping in your exterior. If it becomes too difficult to keep everything exactly the same color, you might want to look into analogous color schemes as a method of providing more variety, which will be discussed in the next installment. Stay tuned!
Color Combo Special #1: Monotonal Schemes
This is very close to monotonal, but not quite there. Still, it's quite a bold color scheme.
Sometimes, extreme conservatism can turn into daring.
As a general rule of thumb for design, the more colors you use in a decoration scheme, the bolder or “louder” that design becomes. And the bolder it gets, the more clever you need to be to keep all the wild colors you choose from clashing with each other. Also, the more “personal” the scheme becomes – meaning that its effect is unique, impressive, and creative, but may appeal to a smaller set of viewers than a more conservative collection of colors (for this reason, bold color schemes are not usually recommended for staging houses). For those who want to take the easy road with their design scheme, however, fewer – and more neutral – colors are what the doctor usually orders.
Usually. True monotonal color schemes are the exception that proves the rule. A “monotonal” color scheme is one in which only one color is used. Literally, only one color. For interiors, that would be the same color for the walls, ceilings, furniture, rug, flooring material, etc. For exteriors, that would be the same color for the siding, brick, doors, window trim, chimneys, etc. And where the use of just a few neutral colors with little variation around the color wheel can create a mellow, conservative composition, the use of literally one shade of one color on everything looks daring and wild – and most of the time, rather overwhelming.
That’s because you will almost never find a scene in nature composed of only one color. When you look closely at a stream bed full of seemingly “gray” pebbles, you’ll find that upon closer inspection, the rocks are a veritable crayon box of different hues; lights and darks, reds and blues, stripes and speckles. To come upon a scene where there is only one color, no matter how closely you inspect the details, is to come upon a scene that shows off humanity’s control over our environment in a rather startling manner.
Such aggressive monotonality has been a hallmark of certain edgy modern styles. An all-white living room or an all-red dining room creates a living space that really attracts a lot of notice, and garners a certain amount of respect in some social circles for the bold statement that it makes. With only one color, the variety of textures and light sources in a space get thrown into high relief, creating a fascinating visual effect. In some cases, a monotonal color scheme can be made even more vivid by breaking the strict adherence to one color only by adding a bright, splashy accent color.
However, for many of us, a monotonal color scheme does not provide for a very relaxing living space. The same field of uniform color that is exciting and edgy in a club or restaurant can quickly become grating and irritating when you have to look at it day in and day out. When you start at the far edge of uniformity, allowing some variety into your color scheme will actually make it more relaxing, less conspicuous, and more conservative. Taking that first step into variety brings you out of the monotonal color scheme and into the monochromatic scheme, which we will discuss in our next installment in this series. Stay tuned . . .
Top Five Reasons Why Paint Fails
Hasy application of a second coat of paint before the first coat is fully dry is a major cause of alligatoring.
Nothing is more frustrating than a failed paint job – especially if it fails right after it is applied. Luckily, the most common reasons for premature paint failure are well-known, and can be prevented. Here, Blue Door Painters lists the top five reasons for paint failure, and what can be done to prevent them.
1. Inadequate preparation. A surface needs to be thoroughly stripped of loose material, scraped, sanded, caulked, cleaned, and primed prior to application of a new coat of paint, or that paint does not have good odds of staying successfully adhered to the surface. Blue Door Painters follows a strict regimen of surface preparation before all of our jobs in order to prevent this form of failure.
2. Bad weather. The weather cannot be too cold or too wet while paint is drying and curing, or the film will not form adequately. For this reason, Blue Door Painters pays close attention to the weather when scheduling exterior jobs. Ideally, conditions should be warm and dry for 24 hours following a new paint job.
3. Cheap paint. While you don’t necessarily need to buy the premiere designer paints, the extremely cheap paints contain a surplus of useless filler components, and are not built to last. Blue Door Painters recommends purchasing a good, solid, tried-and-true brand of paint like Duron or Sherwin-Williams.
4. Improper priming. While some brands of paint claim that their products can be used without a primer, in our experience painting most surfaces without a primer is a recipe for coating failure. A prime coat is specially designed to adhere to the substrate – and should be selected to adhere to the specific substrate you are dealing with. It takes a different kind of paint to adhere well to metal, wood, drywall, old paint, masonry, etc. – and this is the specific purpose of your primer. In Blue Door Painters opinion, this is not a step that shoudl be skipped.
5. Hasty Application. Failing to wait for full drying and curing between coats, laziness in prepping the surface, and hasty application of paint leaving gaps in the continuous film are all leading causes of paint failure. Painting a wall may seem simple, but it really does need to be done right. Which is why Blue Door Painters staff are all held to the highest possible standards of craftsmanship, so that we produce a paint job that we can stand behind.
Wallpapering for Children: Fun With Murals
Muralists have created a new approach to old wallpaper patterns like this one. (photo by dleafy)
Wallpaper means patterns. That’s what initially made wallpaper attractive as a wall covering; with wallpaper, you can get a factory-prepared pattern repeating perfectly across a large surface, without having to worry about the tedium of trying to stencil a repeating pattern by hand.
However, in modern days, the medium of wallpaper has been used to achieve a different effect; that of a painted mural. Particularly for children’s rooms, wallpaper murals are an attractive, and easy, alternative to artwork. Since they are applied directly to the wall, they give the room the look of actually being in whatever fun, exotic location the mural depicts – the zoo, the jungle, under the sea, in Disneyland. Recent design styles have experimented with wallpaper murals of all different sizes, from smaller murals that can be used as accents, to larger murals intended to cover entire walls.
Wallpaper murals aren’t just for kids, either; in some modern homes, daring designers are experimenting with sophisticated designs and hip artwork in adult living rooms, bathrooms, and bedrooms.
Prep: The Bedrock of Any Paint Job
Prep your surfaces before new paint jobs.
A paint job is only as good as the preparation that goes into it.
If there were a stone onto which the ten commandments of painting were carved, that one would be right at the top, all in capital letters.
In order for a paint job to work correctly, it has to stick to the surface it is meant to coat. That paint does stick to the surface is something that most people take for granted, but it is actually the result of years of clever engineering. Paint is a liquid, which, when spread across a vertical surface (or even applied to a ceiling, directly in opposition to gravity), rather than running down and collecting on the floor, stays adhered in a thin film where it is applied, forming a solid coating. Only a mixture with just the right viscosity and chemical composition can manage this feat that we take so much for granted.
And that is when the surface to which it is being applied is a continuous solid. What happens when you put a new coat of paint on top of a surface covered in loose material – dirt, grease, chipping or peeling remnants of an old paint or wallpapering job? Well, the new paint attempts to do what it was engineered to do – form a strong, continuous film. The problem is, when you form a continuous film over a discontinuous surface, tension gets added to the loose particles, and they tend to loosen further, pulling away from the rest of the surface. The film of paint covering therefore starts to get torn in different directions and pull away from its close adhesion to the rest of the surface, causing all sorts of problems. Take a wall with chipping paint, for example. If you paint over it, as the new paint dries, it contracts and adheres to the whole surface, including the flakes of loose paint. By contracting, it pulls some of those loose flakes off the wall. This may form cracks in the film between the paint adhered to the loose chip and the paint adhered to the rest of the wall. It also creates a void behind the film, in which moisture and mildew can collect, leading to the steady erosion of the film.
What is the solution to this problem? Extremely careful preparation of the surface before a new paint job is administered. Blue Door Painters follows a strict preparation regimen of stripping, sanding, scraping, caulking, replacing failing drywall and plaster, and thorough cleaning before administering any new coatings to a substrate. That way, we ensure that we have put up a coating that was truly prepared to last.
