Paint Splatters and Over-Brushing

This is baseboard in a corner of a room where I will be installing wallpaper . The blue is my dropcloth .

Wow.  Look at the paint splatters on the baseboard .  Maybe the paint was thin , or the painter was working too fast, causing paint to fly off the roller cover .  This could have been prevented by placing wide blue painters tape above the molding , or by covering the baseboards with strips of dropcloth or plastic .  Do a search here to see my previous posts about my technique .

Later, the room décor changed, and the grey paint was covered with pink paint.  Here you see where the painter let his brush swipe paint onto the top surface of the baseboard.  He did the same thing with the underside of the crown molding at the ceiling , too.  This is one of my pet peeves.  Looks so bad.  They do it because it’s easier than “ cutting a clean line .”  To do it right, all it takes is a good angled trim brush and a steady hand , and patience .  Or, use blue tape or even a trim guide to keep paint off the woodwork . 
I’ll probably take some white craft paint to color over this, before hanging the wallpaper .

Wallpaper Coming Off – Delaminating Wall

An Unfortunate Situation

This Brooklyn Toile wallpaper by Flavor Paper on an accent wall in a nursery went up beautifully. The contractor had added new Sheetrock to one wall, and painted the other, old/original wall. I skim-floated both walls and sanded smooth, primed, and hung the wallpaper. Perfect! (Search here to see my original post.) But within less than a month, the homeowner contacted me and said that the wallpaper was ” coming off the wall .” It was a 1920’s bungalow in the Woodland Heights neighborhood of Houston. And therein lies the brunt of the problem.

The wallpaper itself is not ” coming off the wall .” What’s happening is that the wall surface itself is coming apart – or, delaminating . This is because multiple layers of paint and other substances on the wall may not be compatible. A probably scenario: In 1920 oil-based paint was used. Later someone rolled on a coat of latex paint. Then the homeowners redecorated and used gloss paint. Then some ” flippers ” who had watched too much HGTV slapped on more paint without bothering to de-gloss or prime first. And somewhere in the mix you’ve got cheap paint and dust and other incompatible materials.

Over time, and especially when stress is put on the wall surface, such as when wet wallpaper paste dries and the paper shrinks, this stress can tug at the wall and actually pull these layers apart. There are other contributing factors, too, such as humidity, temperature, and location. I find it interesting that the worst parts of the affected seams were toward the top of the wall. This speaks of heat, humidity, and forced air (either hot or cold) coming out of the air vent just to the right of this wall. This photo is of the area over a door, very close to the air vent.

See how thick that is? It’s not just the wallpaper. There are several layers of wall coming apart. Some layers are clinging to the back of the wallpaper, and some are staying stuck to the wall.

Multiple layers, many years of coatings on this wall.

Easy to see the many layers. The paper itself, my blue primer, my layer of smoothing compound, paint, more paint coming off the wall. Then multiple layers of paint and texture still clinging to the wall. This shot is just below the ceiling.

Same thing happening at the baseboard at the floor.

Layers of paint separating from the wall in chunks. Some pulled off easily, and some I had to chop off with my 3″ putty knife.

Most of the paint and unstable surface material clung to the back of the wallpaper. This pile is just three strips – only half the wall. But it’s thick and stiff and heavy because of the paint stuck to the back of the wallpaper. There was so much and it was so heavy and bulky that I had to carry it out to my van in two trips. When I got home, it totally filled my trash bin.

Here’s the wall once all the other layers came off. Brushing my hand over it revealed a layer of dust. No wonder the paint and other coatings wouldn’t stick. Nothing sticks to dust. It’s like flouring a cake pan… The paint or wallpaper will kinda stick – but won’t really stick. Paint on top may be fine. But add a little stress from drying / shrinking wallpaper, and you may end up with layers that pull apart.

Wiping the walls with a damp sponge removed a lot more dust. But the wall still felt chalky. Whatever type of paint this was, it was not holding together.

I had to stabilize this chalky surface. Enter Gardz, a wonderful product – Gardz is a thin, penetrating sealer that soaks into porous surfaces and binds substances together. It dries hard and creates an intact surface. The darker area in the picture is where I’ve rolled on a test area. Gardz is thin like water, and it runs and drips and splatters. It’s imperative that you cover floors, countertops, and baseboards, and roll carefully, and roll upward rather than downward, to minimize runs and drips. A microfiber roller holds the liquid well, and reduces drips.

Gardz is made by Zinsser.
No photo of the finished wall, but I was very pleased with the stability of the surface. No more chalk or dust. Now, there still could be unstable or incompatible layers deeper inside the wall. (Latex paint over oil without proper prep.) But for now I feel pretty confident that this wall is solid and will hold up to the next process in preparation for getting the new wallpaper up.

Here’s What You Get When You Ask The Painters To NOT Get Paint On The Wallpaper …

In the photo, you see where the painter let his paint roller bop against the top of the wall. There are other areas where they painted the ceiling, but let their brush run along the top 2″ of wallpaper.

So what’s the problem? My task for today is to strip off the wallpaper. But the paint on top of it makes it difficult (impossible) for water to penetrate the wallpaper. Water needs to be able to soak through, so it can saturate the material and reactivate the paste.

If water can’t pass through this barrier and soften the paste, it will be a long road to hoe to get that paper off the wall easily and without damage to the underlying surface.

Paint Splatters on Floor

Whoops! Someone forgot to put down a dropcloth and got splatters from the paint roller all over the floor.

I see this a lot – but not usually this bad.

It just takes a second, folks, to put down protection for the floor and countertop.

In the second photo, you see my method. I cover the floors, but also tack strips of dropcloths along the top of the baseboards (and also vanity backsplashes).

Preventing Speckles on Floors and Counter Tops

One of my pet peeves is splatters from a paint roller, that land all over a homeowner’s floor or countertop. See top two photos.

There are ways to prevent this. First and foremost is to use a dropcloth. You’d be surprised at how many contractors don’t bother.

But protecting shoe molding and backsplashes and faucets takes a bit more. A lot of people use blue painter’s tape across the top of surfaces.

But I like my method, which you see in the third photo. It’s a strip of dropcloth that I have cut into 9″ wide strips. The material is absorbant paper on the top side, and water-proof plastic on the back.

I use push-pins to tack it above the baseboards and shoe molding, and backsplashes, etc.

It’s wide enough to protect any width of molding, and also faucets on a vanity’s sink. And it’s thin and flexible enough that it will contour around any wall configuration.

Painters! Have Some Respect for the Homeowner’s Property

These homeowners’ home was damaged by flood waters in Hurricane Harvey. The wallpaper, drywall, and flooring in their Bunker Hill area townhome had to be ripped out and replaced.

After repairs, that means that everything in the room is new. Drywall, paint, sink, toilet, floor tiles, etc. It would be nice if people could KEEP everything looking new.

The homeowner asked me not to use the sink, because she already had to clean up messes left by the painters.

She might not have even seen these paint splatters on the floor. In the second photo, you see where the painters let their roller bang into the woodwork. These
dings” are small, but they are visible.

And they are sooo easy to prevent. All you need is a drop cloth. In addition, I like to tack an 18″ width of absorbant dropcloth fabric along the top of the baseboard, to prevent any spills or splatters from hitting the woodwork or the flooring.

It takes very little to protect a homeowner’s moldings, floor, and countertops.

Here Is How Wallpaper Gets Pasted

Digital Image

Digital Image

I lay the wallpaper out on my table, and apply paste to the back with a paint roller. It’s fast, even, and easy to control. The bucket of paste is on the table just for the photo – usually, it’s on the floor to my left. And believe me, when that bucket is full, it’s nearly 50lbs and no way would my table or trestles support that!

Many of my friends keep their rollers in their bucket of paste. Some of them leave it in the bucket overnight. My mind can’t wrap around that, and I sure don’t want paste getting all over the metal part of the roller cage or the wooden handle. And I can’t imagine not washing your tools at the end of the work day.

Instead, I keep a damp cloth on the edge of my table, to keep paste from getting onto the table, and I hang my roller neatly on the table. (Second photo) It’s handy and clean.

Mystery Dots Killed With Kilz

Digital Image

This powder room was originally painted a very dark brown. The new homeowner had her painters cover it with a good quality sealer and stain blocker, oil-based KILZ Original. This makes a good wallpaper primer, too. So I didn’t need to do any prep, but could just start hanging wallpaper.

But when I looked at the walls, I noticed some light dots all over one area. It looked to me like possibly something bleeding through – as if oil or mold or something had gotten onto the wall. This is a problem, because these substances can bleed through wallpaper and stain the surface.

Or – the dots could have simply been because the painter had a lump stuck to his roller, and it was leaving this pattern with each rotation of the roller.

But you never know, and I didn’t want to risk having something stain the new wallpaper. Even though I had been told that the room had been painted with KILZ, and I know that that product seals off stains and prevents bleed-through, I wanted to be extra sure. So I got my “emergency” quart of KILZ out of my van and daubed more on, on top of each of those little dots.

In the photo, you see some dots, and some daubs of KILZ.

Paint Splatters on Baseboards, Floor, and Countertops

See these little grey specks of paint? This is because whoever painted the wall using a roller did not put blue painter’s tape on the baseboards, to protect them from splatters. There were a few specks on the floor, as well. This was an expensive new home in the Heights.

In the last photo, a powder room in the Rice U. area, you can see splatters all over this nice slate countertop. The floor in this powder room was equally marred. What a shame.

The primers I use are clear or white and don’t splatter much. But still, I usually use push-pins to hold the dropcloths up over the baseboards, to catch any drops that might fall.