Painting Things (with sub-things by my mom)

[mrissa]

1. Do not use popcorn-texturing on your ceilings if you have any choice at all. Really, seriously: don't. It crumbles at the slightest jolt, and there is absolutely no way to get a clean line along the edge.

1a. Mom wants it known (be it hereby known!) that the two glurps of blue paint on the stupid, stupid popcorn ceiling near the door to the library were mine and not hers. So now you know -- and will know to look for them, if you are ever in my library. Or even just inside the front door -- you can see them from there. (Except that we will try to fix them later.)

2. Oh, is this blue. Boy howdy, is it ever blue. You will not ever be able to mistake it for not-blue. Because it's blue. Since blue is what we want, this is a good, good thing. (It is a good blue.)

2a. Mom points out that I have liked this blue for a long, long time: it was the color they painted my toybox and rocking chair when I was barely walking. My goodness. So it is. I didn't notice, but now that she points it out, it really is. She thinks the other shade might have been slightly greener, but I think probably not. Well. Imprinting.

3. Mom is doing the edges and I am doing the rolling.

3a. Except that Mom is doing the rolling right now and I am posting to livejournal and writing a bit of the book because I am maybe the teensiest bit dizzy and she is maybe the teensiest bit a mom.

Well. Maybe more than the teensiest on that last part.

Comments

[retrobabble.livejournal.com]

1. Do not use popcorn-texturing on your ceilings if you have any choice at all. Really, seriously: don't. It crumbles at the slightest jolt, and there is absolutely no way to get a clean line along the edge.

Also, watch the crumblies. The older acoustic contained asbestos and in its friable state is very easy to ingest into the lungs. You're probably not doing enough removal to worry about it (it tends to be cumulative)and/or yours may be newer acoustic, but I still fret.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

We're not removing any of it on purpose. Sigh.

[porphyrin.livejournal.com]

Oh...

!!

Great. Good to know.

[skwirly.livejournal.com]

They do sell popcorn-ceiling repair kits, if you do too much damage to it. Although, if you're feeling like a day of work, you could just remove it -- you spray it with some sort of evil disintegrate-y substance and then just scrape it off. It's messy and your arms hurt afterwards, but it's worth it! I hate popcorn ceilings.

Can you tell I'm in house-nerd mode? (Not that that's really any different from any other day.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

We have used such kits before here in the office and will probably use one this time. This month, I really don't have a day to devote to ridding myself of the scourge in one room -- particularly as it's a room we've already painted almost completely!

The thing that amuses me about all this is that my gmail notification of lj comments produces the google-ad, "Ugly Popcorn Ceilings? Replace them quickly and easily!" Apparently nobody likes these things.

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

Huh. My bedroom was bright yellow when I was small. I wonder if that's why I love yellow rooms and think of them as cheerful.

[skwirly.livejournal.com]

It's so true. Popcorn ceilings are totally of hades.

Think of it this way -- at least you have ceilings. I just have... uh.. joists.

[skwirly.livejournal.com]

Also, I just had this bizarre mental image of popcorn ceilings as 'the scourge' -- like, creepy alien invaders posing as popcorn ceilings.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

At least you have joists! When I was your age, we just had poles and cloth and wolf spiders we weren't allowed to kill!

Okay, so that was only at Girl Scout camp, and I was a lot younger than you are. But I couldn't resist.

[skwirly.livejournal.com]

And it snowed! Uphill! Both ways!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I don't know. If I recall correctly, mine was, too, when I was tiny, and I'm just not a yellow person. (We will pretend that the honey-gold I want to paint the master bathroom Totally Doesn't Count.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And we had no internet -- we just had to shout ones and zeros into the phone! Which was a Dixie cup on a string!

[timprov.livejournal.com]

You don't really want a bathroom that color, do you? It's just easier than replacing all the fixtures.

[skwirly.livejournal.com]

And oy! The static on that string!

[pezwitch.livejournal.com]

I must share that the apparently insane previous owners of our house saw fit to popcorn not only the ceilings, but all of the beautiful crown moldings on our first floor as well. Sigh.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

They popcorned your crown moldings?

Do you have an address for these people, that the mob with pitchforks and torches may seek them out?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

All the fixtures and all the tile. Yes.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Yikes. Isn't that a crime against humanity or something?

Now, the picture molding in the basement bedroom is painted to match the walls; but trust me, I looked at that wood before painting it, and it's not display wood. And I haven't even put it *up* yet; it's stacked painted waiting for me to get around to that. So I won't go so far as to say that anybody who ever paints any woodwork in a house should be hung, drawn, and quartered. But most of them, certainly.

[ellarien]

My apartment has popcorn ceilings. I suspect that it's the American equivalent of the British Artex -- a way to disguise cracks and unevenness by applying a texture. A few years ago, there was an addendum to the lease saying that the popcorn stuff contained asbestos and wasn't to be touched, not even for dusting, but that only turned up the once, so maybe they determined it wasn't the asbestos kind after all.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It's the cheapest way to disguise cracks and unevenness, I think. Bleh. I would rather have a somewhat uneven ceiling than this.

[brooksmoses]

Yes.

Our old apartment's lease agreement contained a clause that explicitly stated that we were not to touch the ceiling, or cause anything to come in contact with it, for that reason.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Eek. I have a friend who's renovating an 1890s (or so) house in West Philadelphia, and it's involved things like scraping paint off cherry-wood and mahoghany trim.

[pezwitch.livejournal.com]

My sentiments exactly! Cleaning all that crud off the moldings is one of my "To Do Eventually" projects, but... ugh.

[pezwitch.livejournal.com]

I personally don't have too much of a problem with painted woodwork (which is good, because our house is full of it), although I do enjoy a nice dark stain on wood as well. I just get confused when people see fit to TEXTURE the woodwork. WTF?

[pezwitch.livejournal.com]

Oy.. my sister-in-law is in the middle of that process, too. The wood underneath the cruddy paint is just beautiful!

It was not yellow!

[mormor1.livejournal.com]

Your first bedroom most certainly was *not* bright yellow! It was *butter*.