That 'big project' I've been banging on about for a few years now....

[Deimos]

My house is concrete block  (8 x 8 x 16 inches... 2 cavity).
It has no insulation at all except in the ceiling. I do have double glazed windows (an improvement).
But I have a lot of "airflow".

The block acts as a thermal mass, slowly absorbing the [often extreme] heat over the summer and and then releasing it to keep the house warm from October to December.
I usually do not have  to use the heat pump until January, and then only at night (nights are typically  around 40F).
From December through March the blocks cool off and then keep the house cool enough (similar to adobe but not nearly as efficient) that I do not need to use the Air cond. until mid-late April or May.

That is, the block heat up and cools down lagging the outside temps by about 3 months.
It is why no insulation is used in the walls.

The picture is a pretty accurate depiction of how my house is constructed, except there is no exterior "stucco" (yuck-o) finish...just painted block.
   

[James Harrison]

That looks to be quite specialised to the area, noting the comment about subterranean termites (we don't have those in Staffordshire)... nor do we have hurricanes.  Other than that though it's quite similar to how houses in the UK are built, except for the materials.  Concrete blocks tend to be used on the inside face of structural or load-bearing walls, and the outside face is generally brick.  That's for modern construction of course- older houses such as mine have suspended floors with an air gap, but below that I'm expecting I will find a concrete raft of some description, which was the norm by the turn of the 20th Century.  One day I'll dedicate a post to the books and sources that I'm using for structural matters. 



Yes, there is new paint in the sitting room.  No, it's not given a brilliant even finish.  Yes, it needs a second coat.  Frustratingly the camera consistently fails to give an accurate reading of the colour, which is a nice deep rich lively blue.  The colour, by the way, is 'Antibes' from B&Q.  It's a similar tone to the Farrow and Ball 'Stiffkey Blue' I originally intended to use but has more vibrancy to it and is about a quarter of the cost.   

[Deimos]

....
Yes, there is new paint in the sitting room.  No, it's not given a brilliant even finish.  Yes, it needs a second coat.  Frustratingly the camera consistently fails to give an accurate reading of the colour, which is a nice deep rich lively blue.  The colour, by the way, is 'Antibes' from B&Q.  It's a similar tone to the Farrow and Ball 'Stiffkey Blue' I originally intended to use but has more vibrancy to it and is about a quarter of the cost.  

Are the walls plaster (as in venetian plaster) or just painted sheetrock/drywall (what I think you all call plasterboard/wallboard/gypsumboard)
If the walls are real plaster I can see why the first coat looks so uneven.
But if the surface is drywall, even the first coat should look more even than it does.
What kind of roller are you using?

[James Harrison]

Difficult to say whether the walls are plaster or 'just' plasterboard.  I recall when we drilled them to put the bookshelves up it came away more like a fine dust than grains.  Which suggests it's more like a plaster.  I'm not using a roller for this as when I whitewashed the walls a few months ago it proved pretty much less than useless, comprehensively failing to spread the paint.  So this has all been done with brushes- between 0.5" and3".  I suspect the fact that halfway through I started wetting the brush before dipping in the paint to improve the flow has a good deal to do with the patchy look.  The good news is that the side wall I did this morning has a far better, more uniform, look to it. 

The plan for this afternoon- is it 3.30PM already?!? is to start down the other side of the room working toward the window. 

[Madasasteamfish]

Difficult to say whether the walls are plaster or 'just' plasterboard.  I recall when we drilled them to put the bookshelves up it came away more like a fine dust than grains.  Which suggests it's more like a plaster.  I'm not using a roller for this as when I whitewashed the walls a few months ago it proved pretty much less than useless, comprehensively failing to spread the paint.  So this has all been done with brushes- between 0.5" and3".  I suspect the fact that halfway through I started wetting the brush before dipping in the paint to improve the flow has a good deal to do with the patchy look.  The good news is that the side wall I did this morning has a far better, more uniform, look to it. 

The plan for this afternoon- is it 3.30PM already?!? is to start down the other side of the room working toward the window. 

TBH I suspect that given the probable age of the building it'll be plaster over lath/brick rather than plasterboard, and using a brush over that sort of area would definitely contribute to a slightly patchy finish.

[Deimos]

...
The plan for this afternoon- is it 3.30PM already?!? is to start down the other side of the room working toward the window. 

Please say that you are going to take down the shelf brackets before you start painting in earnest.....please tell me that. 

[James Harrison]

The shelf brackets.... yes... they had to be drilled and then screwed into solid masonry.  Then because of the porous nature of the bricks we had to use a mastic to secure them in.  So the brackets are going nowhere unless you pull the house down, and even then I think they'd still stubbornly hold on.  The shelves, about half of them have had to be sized to fit a specific location.  I'm not about to start taking them off and then playing 'lets see where this one fits' later.  It will be quicker and easier all around to just paint around them and clean up afterward. 

[James Harrison]

Difficult to say whether the walls are plaster or 'just' plasterboard.  I recall when we drilled them to put the bookshelves up it came away more like a fine dust than grains.  Which suggests it's more like a plaster.  I'm not using a roller for this as when I whitewashed the walls a few months ago it proved pretty much less than useless, comprehensively failing to spread the paint.  So this has all been done with brushes- between 0.5" and3".  I suspect the fact that halfway through I started wetting the brush before dipping in the paint to improve the flow has a good deal to do with the patchy look.  The good news is that the side wall I did this morning has a far better, more uniform, look to it. 

The plan for this afternoon- is it 3.30PM already?!? is to start down the other side of the room working toward the window. 

TBH I suspect that given the probable age of the building it'll be plaster over lath/brick rather than plasterboard, and using a brush over that sort of area would definitely contribute to a slightly patchy finish.

All I can say is that until I started wetting the brush before dipping into the paint it wasn't spreading.  The brush would go to the wall, the paint would come off the brush, and then the brush would immediately start to drag when trying to spread it.  I've dubbed it Thirsty Wall Syndrome.  Curiously, the other walls didn't seem to suffer quite so badly with it- in slightly more time than it took to paint the back wall, the rest of the room got done today.   







Second coat starts tomorrow- I have about 500 books piled up in the dining room that need to be back on their shelves by Monday otherwise I shall have nowhere to conduct my day job.  For tonight- I would say a beverage with a % proof is in order, but I'm all out in that line and obviously the pub isn't an option. 

[SeVeNeVeS]

Look I know this is your house, but, yep there's always a but with me.

Too bold for my taste, I would at least bang in a white picture rail, white from that to the ceiling and maybe a white dado to break up the slab of colour, then maybe, just maybe a very slightly lighter blue between the two, so you go White skirting, dark blue, white dado, lighter blue, white picture rail, white to ceiling. Will add a few breaks.

I hate painting btw and really must get around to it myself.............

[James Harrison]

Yeah, I'm keeping the reveal around the bay window white above sill level for exactly that reason.  I've got a very nice deep plaster cornice which will also be staying white.  I like the idea of dado and picture rails- always have- and I'm thinking of having one or the other in the other in dining room and hallway- but they have to fall, for me, at a reasonable level.  In the sitting room that would be at the top of the door frame, and then following that line around it would pick up the top bookshelf- no problem- and then come around to the bay window and land about 3" below the top of the glazing, which would just look awkward and botched.  That's a problem I'm also going to have if I go for dado or picture rails in the dining room- there's going to be an awkward bit of detailing to get it around the window and still look right. 

And now that I've had a go at painting a room myself- I've never done it before- I wholeheartedly agree it can be an awful job.  The problem I was having yesterday was it just wouldn't spread- get it on the wall and marvel as it gets suckered up by the plaster- hence why I took to wetting the brush first, which got around that problem but left a very patchy finish.  Today's issue was the lack of natural light (it's been very overcast all day) which meant trying to paint by artificial light, which I've found is excellent at hiding any patchy areas or streaks until you've moved on to another area, so you have to keep coming back to bits already done. 

[Deimos]

Been reading up on painting plaster walls.
Prep work, is always emphasised  of course (no matter what the surface is.)
So the articles mentioned priming with shellac to seal it.
I've always used shellac to first seal a surface when I wasn't sure how the old paint or finish (such as on wood) would behave with a new paint finish. Prevents non-adhesion, peeling, wrinkling... I love the stuff as a surface prep.
It will also stop any mildew, ( altho' mildew is not a big problem in the desert  )

So....you might try sealing maybe just one wall with shellac (just as an experiment) before painting it.
Yes, it is an extra step and expense, but if it works the advantages are,
1) the paint will go on much easier,
2) you won't need more than 2 coats of paint because the plaster won't be sucking it up, which should save you a chunk of change.  
3) coats will be much more uniform in color ...i.e. no splotching
4) makes the whole job less onerous

[James Harrison]

I'll bear that in mind for the next room. Because today a second coat went on the back wall and the alcove and....



Much more acceptable result, and the paint flowed better too.

So from this point, the other walls need a second coat- this will probably take a few days at least considering the only time to hand are going to be a few hours each evening- and when that is done I'll leave it a week or so for the paint to really fully dry and harden, and then paint the cornice and the window reveal.  That's probably two weeks' evenings, all told.  By that point I might be able to justify buying the gloss for the skirting and door frame.  The problem with the skirting board is that it has sprung, so needs securing back in place (this was one of the jobs the carpenter would have been doing had it not been for the plague).  

Anyhow, bits I can get done by myself basically mean that when this plague has gone away I'll only need the new light fitted, the new radiator fitted and the skirting board sorted out and then this room is more or less done.  

~Addendum~  I'm forgetting the ironwork for the brackets. They will be cleaned up. 

[James Harrison]

Last night I had a go at breaking up the tree trunks.  Too much like hard work, mission aborted- though I may have another crack at the smaller tree tonight.  Whilst doing that, I found a few more pieces of broken tile, which suggests that the path may once have been made up of a mixture of 5" square and 1" square buff-coloured tiles.  I also found a piece of red tile, which I reckon would originally have been on the roof, as there is a nail hole neatly drilled through it. 

Work also progressed in the sitting room, where the chimneybreast got a second coat of paint.  That makes, err, five sections of wall painted.  Out of fourteen. 

So, tonight's plan:

1) Rake up the last bits of tree foliage and branches in the garden;
2) Make an attempt to reduce the smaller of the two trees to kindling;
3) Paint another few sections of wall.

[J. Wilhelm]

I while back, I thought you wrote about getting some paint rolls. Would a small paint roll have helped with the uniformity issue? Or did the damnable plague interfere with that as well? Of course, I mean, depending on what is still considered "essential" and still can be purchased across the pond. There are in fact acrylic primers of various shades for the very same situation you face.

[James Harrison]

Yes, I bought some paint rollers.  The little one (that will squeeze behind the back of a radiator) is actually quite good, the larger one perhaps less so.  It tends to stick a lot, or alternatively throw an unholy mix of paint and water everywhere like some sort of possessed paddlesteamer thrashing about.  So I've resorted to brushes instead, which get the job done, s-l-o-w-l-y and tiringly. 

I think the plan for this evening will be to finish the blue paint in the sitting room, as last night I managed to get both the second alcove and below the bay window done. 

[James Harrison]

All blue walls done....



Next objective: strip and repaint the bay window reveal and window sill.  Actually the window sill is already stripped, it just needs repainting.  I think I'll go for a slightly off-white satin or eggshell for these, and on the skirting boards too.  

[Banfili]

All blue walls done....



Next objective: strip and repaint the bay window reveal and window sill.  Actually the window sill is already stripped, it just needs repainting.  I think I'll go for a slightly off-white satin or eggshell for these, and on the skirting boards too.  

And tidy up the tops of your walls, too! Or did you tape those first?

[J. Wilhelm]

All blue walls done....



Next objective: strip and repaint the bay window reveal and window sill.  Actually the window sill is already stripped, it just needs repainting.  I think I'll go for a slightly off-white satin or eggshell for these, and on the skirting boards too.  

And tidy up the tops of your walls, too! Or did you tape those first?

You mean the crown moldings.

[James Harrison]

Yes the cornice are on the to-do list. I've got to wait for the paint to fully dry out first- I don't want it peeling off with the masking tape.

[Banfili]

Are you using regular masking tape or the stuff vehicle painters use for lining out & stuff!

[James Harrison]

Just regular decorator's low tack masking tape.

[James Harrison]

Tonight then the window reveal got a dousing with paint stripper.  After the fun and games I had with a palm sander on the window sill, I'm quite surprised how little fuss I've had so far.  Paint it on, give it a little while to soften the paint and then it just falls off with the slightest touch from a scraper. 

The venetian blinds had to be taken down to get at the window reveal of course and this highlighted an amusing bodge.  They had a nice little decorative moulding on them, which proved to be secured with velcro.  I'm debating at the moment whether I want to reinstate blinds at all, as I without them there's a lot more light in the room.  There's also something of an exposed feel though, considering how the trees and bushes are largely gone from the garden and how the footpath actually curves around in front of the house.  I do prefer the option of having at least a bit of privacy.   

[Madasasteamfish]

Tonight then the window reveal got a dousing with paint stripper.  After the fun and games I had with a palm sander on the window sill, I'm quite surprised how little fuss I've had so far.  Paint it on, give it a little while to soften the paint and then it just falls off with the slightest touch from a scraper. 

The venetian blinds had to be taken down to get at the window reveal of course and this highlighted an amusing bodge.  They had a nice little decorative moulding on them, which proved to be secured with velcro.  I'm debating at the moment whether I want to reinstate blinds at all, as I without them there's a lot more light in the room.  There's also something of an exposed feel though, considering how the trees and bushes are largely gone from the garden and how the footpath actually curves around in front of the house.  I do prefer the option of having at least a bit of privacy.   

Might I suggest some net curtains? That would be in keeping with the style you're looking to achieve overall.

[Lord Pentecost]

Looking good and I like the colour. A few suggestions/ bits of advice based upon the various decorating I have done in my house/my mum and dads house.

1: Don't water down emulsion paint, the emulsion from B&Q etc. is already the right consistency for applying with a brush or roller.

2: Rollers splatter a lot, that's just how they are so you will need to cover everything with dust sheets (end of life curtains and bed sheets work well). Use a proper roller tray and make sure you don't have too much paint on the roller (roll paint out of it on the textured surface of the tray before applying to the walls) or it will splatter more.

3: A roller will be unusable if you water down the paint, a roller will (generally) give a more even finish than a brush on large areas but you need to use random strokes with it not do it in lines.

4: Unless you are looking to go for a varnished wood finish for your window frames (or the existing paint is flaking) stripping them is generally a waste of time, just give them a light sand and paint over wear a good mask as a house the age of your's WILL have lead paint.

5: Same as above applies to plastered walls, if the walls are already painted the plaster is sealed and no primer should be needed unless you're trying to cover a dark colour with a light colour or cover old water stains etc. Wash the walls down with sugarsoap before painting and the paint will stick better. If you have bare plaster, paint with a 60/40 paint/water mix (with a brush), to cure the "thirsty wall" issue no need to use your good paint for this I have some watered down wilko basics paint for this purpose.

6: Masking tape is often more likely to pull paint off if you let the paint fully dry/harden before removing (especially for gloss/satinwood paint). If this is problem, run a sharp knife along the edge before pulling the tape off.

7: As I'm sure you have discovered it's usually far easier to paint before installing shelves etc!

[James Harrison]

Looking good and I like the colour. A few suggestions/ bits of advice based upon the various decorating I have done in my house/my mum and dads house.

1: Don't water down emulsion paint, the emulsion from B&Q etc. is already the right consistency for applying with a brush or roller.

2: Rollers splatter a lot, that's just how they are so you will need to cover everything with dust sheets (end of life curtains and bed sheets work well). Use a proper roller tray and make sure you don't have too much paint on the roller (roll paint out of it on the textured surface of the tray before applying to the walls) or it will splatter more.

3: A roller will be unusable if you water down the paint, a roller will (generally) give a more even finish than a brush on large areas but you need to use random strokes with it not do it in lines.

4: Unless you are looking to go for a varnished wood finish for your window frames (or the existing paint is flaking) stripping them is generally a waste of time, just give them a light sand and paint over wear a good mask as a house the age of your's WILL have lead paint.

5: Same as above applies to plastered walls, if the walls are already painted the plaster is sealed and no primer should be needed unless you're trying to cover a dark colour with a light colour or cover old water stains etc. Wash the walls down with sugarsoap before painting and the paint will stick better. If you have bare plaster, paint with a 60/40 paint/water mix (with a brush), to cure the "thirsty wall" issue no need to use your good paint for this I have some watered down wilko basics paint for this purpose.

6: Masking tape is often more likely to pull paint off if you let the paint fully dry/harden before removing (especially for gloss/satinwood paint). If this is problem, run a sharp knife along the edge before pulling the tape off.

7: As I'm sure you have discovered it's usually far easier to paint before installing shelves etc!

All very very good which I heartily endorse (he says whilst resting his aching body).  The only reason I painted around the shelves was because after the fun we had putting them up it was the lesser of two evils, believe me.  Much of the plaster appears to be new- at least in the sitting room.  I'm trying to smooth down the window reveal at the moment- it was thick with paint- and although the original goal was to take it back to plasterwork and regain the 3mm or so of extra space it's reaching a point where the effort isn't worth the return.