please don't paint while dumb.

[thespian.livejournal.com]

Ok, not all of them. But man; I have never seen as many half-assed interior paint jobs as I have seen in Somerville in the last week. Seriously bad paint jobs.

So, I implore you, people of Somerville (and anywhere, really, but man, the amount of crap work I've seen in Somerville astonishes me):

If you're not going to take the nails, let alone the thumbtacks out of the wall before you paint, just leave it, mmmkay? That also goes for taking the plates off your outlets, putting up masking tape, spackle the holes and sand them after, and all these basic things you will learn from 10 minutes of watching HGTV. Painting a room is not an easy job, and if you do it half-assed, you can do a lot of damage.

The room that I'm in right now, someone left one of those $5 wall mirrors on the wall, and painted around it.

Then when they moved out, the took it with them.

And yes, I did indeed just discover the room I'm moving into has painted over thumbtacks.

So, Tenants, I know it's not your property, you feel like, 'hey, I know, I'll paint it purple', and I'm cool with that. But if you can't do it properly, just don't do it, since someone else is just going to have to clean up after your damn mess.

I'm have to go spackle more now.

Comments

[srakkt.livejournal.com]

Do you want to borrow my quarter-sheet power sander?

[tisana.livejournal.com]

What boggles my mind is the amount of painted over wall outlets and hinges from supposedly professional painters. Or the ones who used some weak-ass paint for the heavy traffic porch, and it was wearing off in a few months. The same "professional" painters left lots of mistakes--paint smears on contrasting colors--and never attempted to clean them up.

But hey! Think on the bright side. At least they didn't attempt to spackle with toothpaste. The bright blue gel kind. Oy.

[ron_newman]

How is it that you are seeing all of these places?

[thespian.livejournal.com]

I appreciate the offer; while I gave up a lot of my power tools in my Toronto to Camberville move, I kept my power sander. It's one of the handiest things ever (I miss my jig saw, though).

I just found painted over *scotch tape*, with a tiny piece of poster under it.

Later on, I want to braintap you about the windowsills and doors, which have been painted something like 3000 times with heavy gloss paint. They're likely a wash, since I don't own the place or anything, but I don't want to make it worse.

Tenants schmenants.

[bigfatwhale.livejournal.com]

That's what a deposit is for. The landlord is supposed to clean up the tenants' mess.

[thespian.livejournal.com]

I've helped two other people paint this week (srakkt was one of them), I've helped four people paint over the last half year, and this isn't my first Somerville apartment ;-)

Also I'm extra bitchy with all the spackling.

[swingchickie.livejournal.com]

painted hinges are a joy. also a joy is when they paint over the magnets on your kitchen cabinets, so they don't stay closed anymore. grrrrr.

[thespian.livejournal.com]

yeah; we have two doors here that were hung in a non-thinking fashion; they both open into the middle of the room, instead of against the walls they they both corner, in one room it won't open fully because of the radiator behind it, and in the other room, which is small, it takes up 3 feet of wall space (or as it currently does, hits my bed). srakkt is going to help me switch them soon, but right now, my main concern is they've been painted over so often you can't actually see the hinges, let alone the screws!

[firepail.livejournal.com]

It's so true. One of my previous Somerville apartments had a wallpaper border that some genius painted over when they repainted the room. What made it even better was that the border was one of those repositionable non-permanent ones that they could have easily peeled off before painting. Of course painting it made it curl and fall down over the course of a year.

In a different apartment the painters clearly let the paint dry a bit in the tray and then rolled it on the wall anyway and left giant strings of livered latex paint on the wall.

[zmgmeister.livejournal.com]

Would a power sander be too strong and take too much of the plaster out?

I talked about this once when I was painting a room, and was told to just use sandpaper wrapped around a little block of wood.

[pooka-madness.livejournal.com]

Noted. ;-D

[ronhaha108.livejournal.com]

power sander wouldn't be too strong, I did my first floor apartment over a few years back and none of the walls had been previously painted, they had wall paper on it.. anyway, all the walls were very rough, the sander made life a lot easier, though plaster dust made the room a mess...

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

I imagine it depends on the plaster. Most of the plaster in my house you could take out by looking at it funny.

[srakkt.livejournal.com]

corollaries to this include:

Do not paint over brick.

Do not paint over those charming solid-bronze antique doorknobs.

Do not paint over woodwork that still shows its own grain.

Re: Tenants schmenants.

[enochs-fable.livejournal.com]

Ha hahaha!

No, the landlord justs take money out of the deposit for stupid stuff like that - if he cares! And unless it's truly egregious, most landlords aren't going to go to the cost of extensive repainting. I don't think they're actually legally obligated to fix something that cosmetic.

Otherwise I suspect the OP wouldn't be finding so many of these abominations.

[smammy]

More corollaries:

When you paint the ceiling, paint the entire ceiling, not just most of it.

Make sure you have enough paint on your roller to actually cover the surface you're painting.

The drop cloth is your friend. You're damn lucky our couch is microfiber.

("Professional" painter, too!)

[theodosia.livejournal.com]

I once ran across two layers of wallpaper that had been painted over. AND, the lower layer was water-insoluable.

And the horsehair plaster underneath had never been sized or primed.

I guess this is what you get when you inhabit older housing stock, to make up for the charm....

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

Probably not the brightest idea -- horsehair plaster contains lead.

(Don't sand while stupid? :-)

[ronhaha108.livejournal.com]

ummmm, if anything creates dust, don't cha think you should wear a mask, which I did, plus close off the room. duh...

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

Just two layers of wallpaper? I once was helping a person strip wallpaper off their newly bought house's living room and hallway's walls. I think there were at least 4-6 layers, going back to the 1800's vintage wallpaper. Some layers were painted over, others were merely wallpapered over. I think one layer was the "fuzzy" wallpaper as well. Some wallpaper jobs were done very well, others were rotten jobs, and "good jobs" and "rotten jobs" were all intermingled. Luckily the final wall we found under it all was very nicely built, and didn't need much work to get it to accept paint.

[somervilleguy.livejournal.com]

Another tip, if you hire out for this and you're qouted less than $200.00 to paint the ceiling and walls of an average size room, be careful, you may end up having to paint it again anyway. I've found that price to be the tipping piont for good work and not so good work.

[kirbybits.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure your previous tenants used to live in my current place -- thumbtack city when I moved in, as well a screws, nails, and staples (?!?).

[hominidj.livejournal.com]

wow. now i'm scared. i'm in the process of trying to find a painter to tackle my new home - interior only. does anyone have any recommendations for good painters in the area?