Archive for the ‘Paint and Prep’ Category
I am posting these pictures as attention getters to show what happens to improperly prepped surfaces
This is not wallpaper
Today on one of the decorative artist forums I belong to I ran across a post where a some of the members are conversing and exchanging ideas and do the things of what artists do when I ran across a post where a description of a finish was explained to where there was an initial texture applied with just using a joint compound. Now the end result is an absolutely beautiful finish in itself and as a matter of fact it has inspired me of using this technique for a basis of a finish I have been beating my head against the wall on for a long time, but what got my attention was that in the explanation of the finish the statement was made that in the process of creating this masterpiece the artist used an acrylic paint tinted close to the actual base color of the finish itself which sent a red flag up the warning pole that I man for each of the artists forums I belong too. Its a voluntary thing I do and it may even annoy some, but I do this for a reason which is why I am writing this post
I have already written this once on another blog , but since I need the traffic I thought I may as well do it hear….
The title of this post says it all pretty much, Do I prime? or not?
Prime or Not to prime you be the judge....
Rule #1 in the painting business “when in doubt do the prime!”
What this artist had done will probably be ok because the individual DID use an acrylic rather than a latex and there wasnt any sanding done to the drywall compound once it was dry, but I do have to warn on this issue because as I explain in the next couple hundred sentances you will see the signifacance and the importance of proper preperation to a substrate is before whatever it is your doing to that particular surface will last as long as it possibly can.
remarkable
If you are creating a texture with a drywall compound which many of us do,
You need to use a good quality primer thats going to absorb into the “mud” and should never avoid this step which is one of the things I am going to cover when I open my studio here in Naples. All too often when I am called out to do a faux or paint repair what I find is the main culprit is the lack of proper preparation and priming. The owners always ask me the reason of the failure and I feel obligated as a professional to provide them with a written report as to the reason in my opinion and experience of why the substrate has failed to hold the finish along with my bill. I am regarded as an expert when it comes to proper procedures to substrate preparations on residential and commercial applications being that I have spent over thirty years in the painting business and many years in the decorative arts as well and when this happens the home owners simply call the ones responsible for the improper work and end up getting reimbursed from either the builder,painting contractor or both, and there has been a few times where the faux company was held responsible as well and trust me you dont want to get my bill, because I am not a happy camper when I have to repair and match someone elses finish that I would have done the proper prep for in the first place. lol
One job that I redone was an entire common area where the “faux finishers” did not use the proper prep while doing a venetian plaster install. Two things happened, they didnt use the correct primer according to the manufacturer because they “thought” it wasnt needed and the other was when they applied their second layer of VP it was over compressed with the trowel that after putting on their third layer and burnishing it was left with some very fine cracking and six months later it started flaking off. It was a huge mess that cost over $40,000.00 to resolve and, Guess who got that bill………the faux finisher……So please everyone do yourselves a favor make sure you dont skip the most important parts of ANY paint or decorative project, I really do love and respect everyone here and I would really hate to see this happen to any of you………..Oh!……the faux finisher? ….they are no longer in business because they didnt have the proper insurance and because word travels fast here no one would hire them again. The worse part of the story was the home owner ended up paying the bill.
If there are any people reading this who are in the trades right now, I KNOW what your thinking as your reading this….because I use to think the same thing until I found out some facts about whats really going on out there because I am the one who is fixing alot of this kind of stuff and am finding out some interestin facts from the homeowners themselves
The old addage of “You get what you pay for” as a famous last word concept cant be used here in this case because the price that paid for this job was the norm for what the current market was at the time, it was just the inexperience that was the factor here or maybe they were just short cutting the job, who knows, but the point is when this happens it makes us ALL look bad and drives people away from our market….. I have many horror stories like this……….One involves Carnuba wax over a VP where a highly regarded builder had to completely gut a 12,000 sq/ft home and an 18,000 sq/ft home because of mold issues…….the cause?……..the faux finishers used Carnuba wax on the VP because it “Worked great!”
As most people know Carnuba is what is mainly used your car waxes which is an impermeable combination that when applied its suppose to resist moisture and water to protect your cars metal componenants from moisture.
I was called in to come and see if I could fix these “little black spots” that were popping up everywhere and when I arrived and took a look at the areas it was obvious to me that the issue was mold and mildew , but it just didnt make sense to me because Italian plasters are mainly lime based which has a natural ability to resist mold and mildew and is a breathable substrate to let moisture in and out which is one of the reasons why it has been used in Europe for hundreds of years as well as the maintenance advantages of the product.
As I looked a little closer I noticed some hazing which I thought was part of the finish and in reality it wasnt , it was just that it was so uniform over the whole surface that it appeared that way and thats when I knew that there was a serious problem. So we called in the mold people to investigate and sure enough it was just as I thought the entire home had been over run with mold behind the drywall because what had happened was the wax itself had made the plaster impermeable so that it was not able to breathe naturally, anyway to make a long story short the whole house had to be abated (gutted basically) right down to the bare metal studs and everything that was wood was also affected so even the Anderson windows had to go to where they were left with nothing but a shell of a house and had to redo everything.
This is why I am bringing this subject up because of the importance of “What To Know Before You Faux” and just how serious the decorative art business really is
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Hi everyone,
Today I was thinking that since I am on a wood graining kick that I might as well work on my other “How To Video” and ended up on my entry door video segments that I recently finished. I have two lines of “How To’s” videos in progress and since I just recently refinished a set of mahogany entry doors I thought I may as well put a preview out there to let people know that I am very knowledgable in things other than decorative art, after all, I have had a brush in my hand since time began for me anyway.
I got this call from a builder friend of mine David Giles of Purple Sage Construction who had a client that needed something done with their entry doors. It turned out that the person who took on this job prior to me did not have the right qualifications to take on such a feat and did the best they could with them without having to strip them. In other words they were a mess by the time I got to them. They were at first wanting to have them woodgrained in order to “cover-up” what was there and I simply told them for less cost they could bring them back to the original beauty of the natural mohagany. To me it just doesnt make sense to do a mohagany wood grain over a mohagany door unless there is some kind of good reason. So I stripped the doors back to the original surface and cleaned them up and this is where this blog begins…..
