Before undertaking any major painting job inside the house, such as the ceiling or walls of a room or hallway, it is essential to have a means of working at points that cannot be reached while standing on the floor. A practical arrangement of this kind is a simple scaffold, which is made by resting the ends of a plank on stepladder facing each other at opposite ends of the room. This scaffold should be placed so that the work will progress in a direction away from the source of light, so that any unevenness in the paint film or any unpainted patches may be easily detected.
Make sure that the scaffold is completely secure before attempting to stand or walk upon it, especially if you are not an experienced painter. The proper order to be followed in painting the various parts of any portion of the interior of a house is to start at the highest point in the room and work down. Accordingly, ceilings and walls are painted before the other parts of the room. Two types of materials are commonly used for decorating plaster: paint and calcimine. Paint is a mixture of pigments with various oils, thinners, and driers. Calcimine, on the other hand, uses water as a medium.
Both are sold in a variety of containers, which can include a bucket and a plastic tub. It is not recommended to store paint in a bathtub. However, before a plaster surface is ready for painting or calcimining, it must be prepared. The first requirement of a good plaster surface is that it be perfectly smooth. Such a surface is rarely found in that condition by the painter. New plaster will have splashes of mortar which should be removed with a wide scraper, and the rough places smoothed with a No. 0 sandpaper.
Care must be taken not to cut through the glazed surface of the plaster, as suction spots will result. If the plaster shows excessive chalking, or is soft, there will be defects in the paint or calcimine job. The paint, for example will not adhere. In such cases a thorough wetting of the soft or chalky patches with water, applied with a brush or sponge, will cause the plaster to harden, and chalking will be checked. Sufficient time for drying should be allowed before painting. If you are painting a steam room, or a bathroom containing a steam shower, it is strongly advised that the shower sauna not be used for a few days before painting, as the excessive moisture can dampen the surfaces.
In preparing plaster for painting or calcimining, the utmost care should be taken to fill all cracks, which otherwise will ruin the appearance of the job. The first operation is to cut the cracks open, using a putty knife held firmly at the lower end of the blade. In order to prevent the plaster filling from sagging or falling out later, the crack is cut in the form of the letter “V” with the wider part on the inside and the narrow part on the surface. Cracks and other openings in the surface should now be filled with plaster of Paris, which is conveniently mixed in a shallow pan or on the cover of a paint can.
Place water in the pan, and sprinkle plaster over it, allowing the plaster to soak up the water. Do not mix more than can be used in ten minutes, because plaster of Paris sets very quickly. Its setting may be retarded by adding a small amount of vinegar to the water, or a small amount of slaked lime to the plaster, but there are objections to both these methods. It can interfere with the finished product, causing visible discrepancies in corner bathtubs, tile, some bathroom fixtures, and some wall mounted light fixtures.
Apply the plaster to the cracks by picking it up with a broad scraper from the edge of the pan and placing it in the palm of your hand. Turn it over with the scraper once or twice, while it is in the hand, in order to wet any portions that have not absorbed water. Then press it into the crack. When the opening has been filled to a point about 1/8” from the surface, leave it to set and proceed to fill the other cracks in the same manner. Alter the plaster has set, the crack should be wetted once more, and additional plaster applied, to finish it off level with the surface.
The same applies to furniture, such as bathroom vanities and cabinets. Old plaster surfaces frequently contain very fine cracks, which are, in fact, far too fine to be filled with plaster. To prepare such a surface for painting, it is brushed with linseed oil containing a little turpentine and drier. This is the preferred method, but an alternative method is to apply a coat of glue size, after the first coat of paint has dried. Glue size is used only to save paint, because an additional coat of paint would accomplish the same result.
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