How to wash a wall

OK, thanks to bringiton and other alert readers, I've washed my kitchen walls with TPS prior to painting them.

But how paranoid do I have to be about rinsing them?

The TPS directions say to rinse immediately, and if you don't, you end up with a thin film of some chemical or other on the wall, and that's obviously not the surface prep I had in mind.

Do I need to go into two buckets mode?_{MR SUBLIMINAL I thought this wasn't a post about politics?} One for the TPS, one for the rinse?

Or is that overkill?

And I just used a floormop on the walls; it works just a like a roller. The only thing is, that the sponges aren't industrial strength. Can anyone suggest a better approach?

Interior latex

Painting with this stuff is like painting with cake frosting.

My father taught me how to paint with oil paint, not this shit.

What's the strategy for avoiding brush marks? I've been slopping as much as possible on as fast as possible, then lining it out to the wet edge. But that can't be right, since I'm going over every surface multiple times.

Help!

Latex paint

After a splendid undercoating with Bringiton's Zinnser B-I-N shellac-based primer -- and what, after all, are a few brain cells lost to the fumes when what's at stake is a really smooth surface -- I laid down the first coat of color today, and had an insight of a sort. (This whole process is hard for me, since my father taught me how to paint when I was a kid, and the last time I did any real painting what my father taught me was still true; but not so now.)

Work with me on this:

Oil-based paint is like oil painting.

Water-based paint (latex) is like water-color.

Painting with oil is all about pushing the paint into the surface (canvas or wall) so that it bonds; it will then smooth itself out. It's possibly, and because of labor, desirable, to get the final color done in one pass over the primer.

Painting with latex is like water-color: The color is built up with a series of thin washes, one over the other. It's not about bonding with a surface at all. If there any brush-strokes show, you've laid it on too thick. Ditto rollers: In fact, I'm evolving toward a "dry roller" technique that puts the absolute minimum film down. Different from oil, again, where the object is to get a maximum down.

So, the trade-off, leaving aside the environment, is oil, fewer coats but nasty clean-up; latex, more coats but much better cleanup -- and probably, since the applicator of choice for latex seems to be not the brush, but the roller (or even, shudder, the spray gun), one coat of latex goes on faster than one coat of oil.

Don't know, I'm not a professional...

Masking tape

I'm doing trim; masking tape sucks.

It's clingy and the very opposite of self-aligning to a straight edge. It reminds me of border tape back in the days of manual paste-up.

Anyone got a cooler and more efficient and less time-consuming alternative? Or am I simply not familiar enough with this set of materials?

Off to do a second coat of primer

Now that I'm fully, totally caffeinated. Take your Unity Ponies out for a drag, kids!

And turn off that damn TV!

NOTE What's the right way to dispose of stuff like paint thinner, or whatever the heck the petroleum derivative is that I'm cleaning my Zinnser B-I-N-S brushes with?

On to finishing the lining in, and then the floor!

Painted floor, of course. Very "old house." And I'm going to try lining in the baseboards. No tape! With oil, it should be easier....

Relenting on tape

OK, OK, tape is both labor-intensive and costs money, and learning to paint a straight line with a brush is faster, way more elegant, and cheaper -- especially with a good stiff* brush.

Tape is the wrong way. The brush is the right way.

Well, except now we come to baseboard trim. And I rapidly determined that the choice was doing it the right way, and stressing my back, and doing it the wrong way, and being able to sit at the computer the following day.

So I did it the wrong way.

And taped along the floor next to the baseboards. And brushed along with the latex (Tuscan red over white primer. Twice, already).

So, comes the next day, I remove the tape, and:

1. The Tuscan red on the baseboards was still uneven, and in some places uncomfortably close to the floor, and

2. Naturally the paint had bled under the tape, in spots (I'll give the blue tape once more chance, really thumbing it down, and then go for Frog Tape).

So:

1. I used the steel ruler trick somebody mentioned on this thread (actually, an L-shaped metal ruler). I laid the ruler flat on the floor, painted red down to it, lifted it, wiped it, laid it down for the next section, and so on all around the room. No paper, no dropcloth. That solved the coverage problem.

2. Then I lined in up to the baseboard with the floor paint, by hand, with the brush. That worked great, because it's oil/acrylic, and easier to handle. It is oil over latex, which I understand can be a problem, but it's like an eighth of an inch wide, so how bad can the problem be?

Also, one thing I've learned is that it's not about the geometry, it's about the optics. Painting trim, at least, is all about fooling the eye into seeing a straight line where there may not even be one. The goal is not perfection, but preventing the perception of problems. It's all about the optics... Especially in an old house, where nothing is really square or true to begin with.

NOTE * Obama supporters and fans, I don't mean to imply that I wish Obama to achieve a state of cadaveric rigidity. Sorry for any inadvertant hurt to your precious feelings.

So, can I walk on a floor painted with oil-base paints after 12 hours?

In my bare feet?

Or do I have to wait the full 24 hours until I can put a second coat on to walk on it?

NOTE Sheesh, CD, couldja put up a post like that when I'm not about to go to bed?

That's good stuff, man

Zinsser B-I-N Shellac-Base Primer-Sealer.

Great coverage! The room is going to look much better. And the fumes, oh w-o-w ....

I used to run a paint hood for auto parts back in the day; this stuff packs a punch about like that.

And how refreshing to clean up with organic solvents! Just like my father; brushes kept in gasoline...

So thanks, Bringiton. You were right on the money.

The good brush goes where it should go

At least that's how it feels, even with icky, cake frosting-like latex. I got a fine sash brush, and lining in the trim by eye is a breeze! The brush seems to know where it wants to go....

Not sure I'm ready to surrendur on tape, but masking tape, at least? Never again. In the room I'm priming, blue tape. We'll see how that goes!

What's the best way to clean a floor?

And the first poster to say "on your hands and knees" gets smacked. That sounds too much like work.

Before I paint the baseboards, I want to clean the floors. I'm looking at 20 years of grime accumulated on tile. And the squeeze-mops I buy at the hardware store are wretched -- the sponges disintegrate after just a little use, in a clear ploy to get me to buy more sponges. And yet, in my past life, I've used a string mop, and they don't seem a lot more effective.

It's a bonus if the same solution will clean walls.

And no, I don't want to worry about floor wax. Should I?

What's the best way to wash an interior wall?

Painting the inside of the family house is sad, because in memory, the house is perfect: All the familiar things in place: the books, the furniture, the tsotchkes, the old familiar warm colors. But now the books are gone, the furniture and the tsotchkes are long auctioned, and cruel light exposes the paint drips and failed coverage and errant brushstrokes on the walls. And the cobwebs.

And the walls are filthy and need to be washed, because in painting, preparation is everything.

So what's the best way to wash a wall?

My approach was to sponge the trim and then to use a spongemop on the walls. Interestingly, the "program logic" for this task was just the same as for painting: Work from the top down, narrow sponge for the trim, then work the spongemop just like a big roller.

I used cheap ammonia to lift the dirt. Do I need to worry about a film of any kind, that would cause my initial latex coat not to stick? Or do I not need to worry, given that latex is water-based?

Readers, thoughts?

NOTE I only care about getting the place clean enough to paint. Sparkly clean is not a requirement, if there indeed degrees of cleanliness (as a lifelong bachelor and apartment dweller, I wouldn't know about that).