Interior Painting FAQ's
Residential Painting
Is there a difference between painting new construction houses and an existing home?
How do you fix plaster walls and ceilings?
How long does interior painting take?
How do you protect my floors and furniture?
Do you remove wallpaper or do you paint over it?
How do you fix sheetrock walls and ceilings?
Do you paint kitchen cabinets?
Do you do faux painting or hang wallpaper?
Q: Is there a difference between painting new construction houses and an existing home?
Absolutely!
While similar, each type of painting has different demands.
For a new construction house, nothing has ever been painted before. Particular attention must be paid to all nail holes and caulk lines. You need a large, experienced crew to paint in a new construction house so the job is not rushed, but is completed in a timely manner. There are typically a dozen or more different contractors working on a new construction house so it is important to know exactly what order everything needs to be completed in and who is responsible for what. Wall repair is usually minor or not required. New construction houses are not full of delicate and valuable items that can be broken or stolen.
When re-painting a residential home, the character of the painter counts as much as his skill. The painters must be aware of any variety of small and delicate items that need to be protected or moved. Wall repair is typically required and can be extensive. The day to day living needs of the customer and their family need to be taken into account, it is common to only have 2 or 3 painters on a residential job. We try to work from room to room while giving the customer as much of their privacy as possible during the job. We do not use radios inside of people’s homes. Protecting the floor, carpets and walking areas is paramount.
Q: How do you fix plaster walls and ceilings?
We mix our own plaster when repairing plaster. Depending on the size of the hole, we may mix the plaster with steel wool. If a significant section of a plaster wall or ceiling is damaged, we may recommend removing the entire surface and installing sheetrock or patching with sheetrock. When dealing with cracks in plaster, we use a knife to open up the crack and remove the pressure before filling the crack with new plaster.
You need to move all the small, delicate and valuable items from the work area.
Some examples:
• A $20,000 oil painting should be removed before we arrive, but we can help you move heavy mirrors.
• You need to move the books, we will move the bookshelf.
• Any large flat screen TVs need to be disconnected before we arrive.
• We will handle the sofas, desks, chairs and beds.
Q: How long does interior painting take?
An average interior room takes us a day and a half. We can frequently finish within a day, but because of dry times and touch-ups, we may need a few hours the following day to complete a room. If you are doing several rooms at once, things go a little faster because we can work on a second room while the first room is drying.
All wall paint is latex. For your trim, we will check to see if your existing paint is oil or latex and typically use what you already have. Mixing paint types incorrectly can cause you long term problems that can only be fixed by stripping all the paint from your trim or by installing new trim.
Q: How do you protect my floors and furniture?
We cover your wood floors in our work areas with resin paper and use plastic covered with canvas tarps to protect your carpets and furniture.
Q: Do you remove wallpaper or do you paint over it?
Monk’s Painting will not paint over wallpaper unless it has already been previously painted over by someone else. The first person to paint over wallpaper creates a big problem for someone else that must be corrected sometime in the future. Additional paint jobs do not make the problem any worse. If you have a house where the wallpaper has been painted over, we recommend continuing to paint over it until the paper starts peeling from the wall and becomes a problem. It is very difficult to remove wallpaper once it has been painted over until the glue fails and the paper starts coming off by itself.
If your wallpaper is not painted over, we will remove it prior to painting your walls. After removing your wallpaper, we will prime your walls with one coat of an oil based primer. This coat of oil based primer prevents any remaining glue from ruining the paint job over future years. If the walls are painted without priming them, your paint will flake and peel for years to come. It is very difficult to solve this problem once the walls have been painted. After the oil based primer dries, we will repair any cracks and smooth the walls before painting.
Q: How do you fix sheetrock walls and ceilings?
Nail pops and seam failures are the biggest issues we correct on sheetrock walls and ceilings. For nail pops, we install additional screws around the popped nail head in an effort to secure the sheetrock and prevent future nail pops. For seams, it is often necessary to remove the old tape and install new tape. Ultimately most houses have sheetrock issues because the house is settling. Painters can repair the visible issues, but the causes are in the walls and we can not promise that the issues will not return.
For holes in sheetrock, we have two options. If the hole is small enough, we can use a patch kit to cover the hole and then skim coat the patch to match the wall. If the hole is larger, we will cut the sheetrock back to a stud and patch the hole with new sheetrock.
Q: Do you paint kitchen cabinets?
Yes. We typically recommend oil based paint for kitchen cabinets. Cabinets get a full coat of oil based primer and two coats of paint. We recommend changing the handles, pulls and possibly your hinges when you paint your cabinets.
Q: Do you do faux painting or hang wallpaper?
We do not do faux (specialty) painting and we do not hang wallpaper. Most good wallpaper hangers and faux painters want to practice their particular craft full time. We are usually hired to come in before them to prepare the walls and apply a base coat so that they can come in and get straight to work. If you would like referrals for faux painters or wallpaper hangers, please us know.
We are the company you want to hire to install sheetrock in a bedroom or two but we are not the company you want to hire if you need to install sheetrock on a large new construction job. Sheetrock contractors are set up to come in to an empty house with a giant crew and hang sheets upon sheets of sheetrock faster than you could ever imagine. They are not typically set-up to do any demolition, deal with furniture or hang sheetrock in one or two small areas.
When we finish basements we hang all of our own sheetrock, but you would be better served with a sheetrock contractor on anything larger than that.
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