Tarting the house up - my idea

Iamnobody

Deadman;913297" said:

@Stevebrum, you remind me of my mother in law. She knows everything too )

Does your wife remind you of your mother in law as well? If so I'm scared that you might want to fuck me...

Only trying to be helpful - I don't think I know everything at all and hope my posts don't come across that way.

I personally wouldn't spend that much on a used cooker that's all. Besides my OCD would be in overdrive!

Iamnobody

Phil_aka_Pip;913278" said:

Iamnobody said:



Natural wood doesn't always look good - very much depends on the character of the house.












I don't think my house has much "character"*. I was hoping to give it some using the woody feel. Could you enlighten me as to why natural wood doesn't always look good? Do you mean it looks "out of place" in some environments?



EDIT *



It's an early 70s chalet-style semi with a kitchen at the front (good idea, that, I prefer it to having my music room on view to the rest of the street) and a garage protruding from the front in the middle where it joins onto Mick's gaff next door. He's turned his garage into an extra room.

At risk of sounding like I know everything I've seen that sort of skirting and it looks good in older properties with large rooms and stripped floors.

Where I don't think it looks good is smaller rooms with a dark carpet for example.

It's personal preference at the end of the day - some new builds come with natural woodwork. But I think clean crisp whites are more modern looking and pleasing to my eye.

I just thought if you are improving with a future sale in mind you might want to consider something more neutral and the plus side it being an easier project.

Natural wood might not be everyone's cup of tea that's all.

If you are doing it for you then go for what pleases you. You can't second guess the future.

An example - a couple of years before my grandad died he replaced his aging aluminium Windows with brown UPVC. The new owner when we sold the house ripped out all the new windows and replaced with White UPVC!

Good luck with your projects Phil as long as you like the end result that's all that matters.

Phil_aka_Pip

@Iamnobody fanx mate I'll give it a try, I can always paint it over if I don't like it, or if it comes to sale time and the zeitgeist happens to be for painted wood

TTony

Phil_aka_Pip said:

However if it would help you to move a cabinet or two on in my direction such that my kitchen can be improved by doing so then I'm more than happy to cooperate, by exchanging measurements or even a visit in either direction (accompanied by a sociable pint), so let's stay in touch on the subject

No hassle either way Mr P - the guys bringing the new kitchen in are removing the old one first, so we'd just need to co-ordinate timings and I'd need to intercept a carcass or two before it hit the skip!

chrispy108

Iamnobody said:

But I think clean crisp whites are more modern looking

You're talking to Phil here

Few things more satisfying than a nicely done bit of DIY though Phil so get on it!

I've just moved my bathroom round, done it all myself (with a bit of Dad help) and I've completly transformed the room for about a grand, with a new shower, toilet, bath and sink. Would have cost 10x that to get someone to do it.

chillidoggy

When I read 'Tarting Up the House' I thought this was going to be another Stag-Party thread.

Phil_aka_Pip

Cheers, @chrispy108 ... I have done it before but that was over 10 years ago. I do like "clean crisp whites", especially on walls & ceilings, and I'm not totally averse to paintwork being that way too (as it was in the flat when I sold it, in the 3bed semi when I sold that, and in the previous house which I hadn't had to paint the woodwork as the job was already done when I bought it and still in good nick when I sold it). However, it is sometimes nice to offset the white with colours, eg the soft furnishings, and a bit of nice wood doesn't go amiss.

hywelg

Stripping paint sanding and varnishing is a lot of work. Don't underestimate the amount of time involved. I have just re-done our sittingroom woodwork with a scumble glaze and it looks great. Basically its an old Victorian technique for making crap painted wood look like natural wood. The base layer needs to be sound, holes filled scuffs sanded and painted a pale colour with non-absorbent paint, so something eggshell acrylic or matt oil finish. Then you mix up a brown glaze ( I used Winsor and Newton acrylic colours in order to get the intensity required) to your choice of colour (best to paint something like a pice of hardboard the same as the undercoat to experiment on) . Paint it on roughly then drag a coarse dryish brush through it to make the undercoat show through. No need to be particularly fussy  about the technique, just start in a corner and drag outwards. Experiment with different size and style brushes, generally the cheaper and coarser the better. Its a lot easier than it sounds. Water based so easy to clean up.

If you want I'll post a pic or two tomorrow to show you what it looks like (light is crap now). It is very quick to do and looks great. I even went over the pale varnished pine fireplace with a dark jacobean oak glrazed so it matched my grandma's old overmantle. We also did the walls with a yellow glaze over a pale yellow ground, then distressed it with plastic carrier bags. Again a very quick means of tarting up a room, getting a nice finish thats not flat and boring and a heck of a lot easier than wallpapering.

boogieman

Funny how tastes change. When I bought my 1930s semi 25 years back I spent months stripping off the scumbled finish from all the wood work. There was acres of the stuff, including all the doors. It was the original finish but had crazed and cracked badly. I stripped it with a heat gun and it went like warm toffee, terrible stuff. All the gaps in the wood had been filled with putty too, which was normal for the time, but that all fell out. Got the doors dipped, which saved weeks of work.

Phil_aka_Pip

hywelg said:

If you want I'll post a pic or two tomorrow to show you what it looks like (light is crap now). It is very quick to do and looks great. I even went over the pale varnished pine fireplace with a dark jacobean oak glrazed so it matched my grandma's old overmantle. We also did the walls with a yellow glaze over a pale yellow ground, then distressed it with plastic carrier bags. Again a very quick means of tarting up a room, getting a nice finish thats not flat and boring and a heck of a lot easier than wallpapering.

would be interested to see it, if you get around to it, thanks

BigMonka

I know it's all done to personal preference... But I'd advise against doing too many walls in white as it can make a house seem very sterile - neutral is good but White is too harsh. 

You might also find it hard to get a good finish on wood that has been previously painted, so I would go with reprinting the woodwork white and then giving the walls a small amount of colour.

hywelg

Here you go Phil.

Phil_aka_Pip

@hywelg thanks for that, looks like you made a good job of it

I'm hoping for a light-to-mid brown look to my wood. Just about anything I do to the house to give it any character is going to be faux, but in my (purely subjective) opinion going as dark as you did would be faux-er (s'cuse my french) as the house is only 45 years old.

I'm under the impression your house is quite a bit older than mine.

hywelg

Yes my house is 1906. TBH going that dark was a problem. You have to buy the more expensive acrylic artist paints as additives for the acrylic scumble as the cheaper ones just aren't intense enough. For a pale pine wood look you'll need a brown a yellow and possibly a pink (natural pine has a pinkish hue to it). Make up a test sample before mixing the whole batch. You'll want a pale yellowish base colour. If your woodwork is currently white, I'd give it a try over that, might save you a lot of undercoating.

It is very quick to do once you've done the prep (just key the original paint and spot prime any bare patches). You'll need about a quarter of a pint of glaze to do a room with skirting and door/window architrave. Test various brushes on your test sample board. Old coarse ones about 1½-2" wide are good plus a narrow ¼" artists brush for applying neatly up to an edge. No need to mask off, if you get a little bit on the wall just wipe off with a damp sponge.

I'm sure there will be vids on YT showing how to do it, I didn't bother looking as I had done it before about 30 years ago using home made oil based scumble which was a lot trickier and slower. The results with this water based stuff are a lot better. TBH the photos look a bit rough as I pushed the exposure and sharpened a lot in post, looks a lot more natural in the flesh.

57Deluxe

yes, will look lovely...

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H0W3McLw1L0/S7gMJyBl-hI/AAAAAAAAA_A/f0laSKVKxbE/s1600/Page_4.jpg