Insulating, sheetrocking, taping, skimming, sanding, priming and painting a water-damaged wall in a NE Minneapolis home.
March
2
Wednesday
Recently, TigerOx finished repairing water damage from an ice dam that affected six separate areas of a house in Minneapolis. At some point in, Anders referred to this project as a Greatest Hits project; we used a wide variety of our skills, from wood refinishing to sheetrocking, plasterwork, matching textures, painting, etc. This post outlines one piece of the larger project: repairing a patch of wall that had been taken down to the studs.
This is what the wall looked like when we were asked to estimate this project by the homeowner and their insurance company:
The wall originally had blown-in cellulose insulation that we replaced with fiberglass batts with a kraft-faced vapor barrier.
After the insulation is place, the wall needed to be shimmed so that the sheetrock would lay on the same plane as the existing lathe and plaster wall. There is half inch sheetrock on the wall, and 5/8 inch sheetrock on the ceiling, which is code.
We use catalytic plaster for everything but the topping coat. Catalytic plaster comes in a powder which we mix with water. It sets quickly, which allows us to do multiple coats in one day, and is harder than the topping. The plasterwork, in stages:
First, we back-fill the seams with plaster, and then run plaster tape over those seems. The tape ensures that the seems will not be visible, or reemerge as cracks.
Second coat:
Jeremy putting up finish plaster:
The plaster work is finished, and the wall is ready for sanding. (The ceiling hasn't been finished yet in this picture. That is a story for another day.)
We minimize the amount of dust generated by sanding by keeping the room sealed, use of a window fan, and a vacuum attachment on our primary sander.
We primed the sanded wall with a tinted primer. For this job, we were able to use up primers left over from other projects. The number one way to dispose of leftover paints is to use them up.
Just a quick note on this picture: we also caulked the seam between the ceiling and wall, just to make that junction smoother, which is what the white line is. (And a little bit of funny painter's terminology: you see that paint can lid sitting on the radiator? If you set lids wet-paint-up on the floor, we call this a "painter's trap".)
The wall and ceiling were then painted the original colors. Jeremy is painting the wall with an 18” roller, which we love. More balanced than a 9” roller, it provides better coverage faster.
Pdfs of the card and a how-to video are available.
February
3
Thursday
Ten years ago, when we were going through the process of setting up our company as a legal entity, one of the hardest tasks we faced was coming up with a name. We did not have a crack marketing team at our disposal, so most of the process was blundering through the thesaurus and trying to come up with anagrams based on our intials. Much of this was fun, but it didn't result in anything we would want on a sign. Eventually, Anders struck on our combined astrological signs in the Chinese system. Three of us were born in the Year of the Tiger, and one in the Year of the Ox. Put them together, and we we got TigerOx. We liked the way the ox conjured images of hard work, but with the sleek beauty of the tiger. And maybe most importantly, the domain name was not taken.
We've been sending out cards for the Lunar New year now for six years. The first was for the Year of the Dog, and did not include the origami animal which has become the most notable feature of the card. Cards should be arriving for those of you who are on our mailing list in the next few days. If you can't get the card folded right the first time, didn't get one in the mail, or just want one for practice, the five origami animals from the last five years can now be downloaded from the home page. Also, this year for the first time, we've done a video showing how to fold the card!
TigerOx Painting's most recent interior project has allowed us to try out some low-VOC paints, because the customer specified their use. Low-VOC paints have below 50 grams per liter of VOCs, and a blog entry about VOCs can be found here. The revelation was Benjamin Moore's Advance®. This waterborne interior alkyd is designed as a window, door, and trim paint. Waterborne...alkyd...a latex-oil paint?
We are not chemists - well, Jeremy is, but he was unavailable for comment at the time of this blog post - but painters, so I have no idea how such a thing is possible. The cool thing about Advance® is that it seems to combine the best aspects of oil and latex paints. Ordinarily, latex paints are so quick to dry that they don't level well, meaning the paint holds the brush strokes or roller marks. Oil paints, with their long drying times, level amazingly, but they have a tendency to drip and sag. And because the finish is tacky longer, there's an unhappy potential for hair and dirt to get stuck in the paint, especially if the area gets any kind of traffic. Advance® splits the difference.
The satin finish that we used is on the shiny side of satin, almost a semi-gloss. The manufacturer says Advance® shows minimal yellowing, unlike conventional alkyd enamels. Full-bodied, low odor, good coverage, flow, and leveling, low-VOC, and water-clean up. How could you ask for anything else in an interior trim paint?
It's straight-up embarrassing how long I've been "working" on the gallery, but creating this sort of information organization and structure is NOT in the skill-set that got me into painting in the first place. I've tried to classify the photos into useful categories: color choices and room use for interiors; building materials and style for the exteriors. I will happily take suggestions about how to change the interface to be more user-friendly.
I hope to add more photos as sping unfolds. Pictures are fun though, and they get across the scope and scale of the projects we undertake better than any marketing drivel I could write about our work. Take a look!
It took me maybe longer than it should have to realize that the new EPA lead safety law was intended to go into effect on Earth Day. (duh!)
Here's a link to an MPR news article about the new law, which is alternately panicked and reassuring, which pretty much sums up how I feel about it. Many contractors will not be affected by the new regulations, such as anyone who is in new construction and people who primarily work on newer homes. We almost exclusively work on residential repaints (as painting your existing house is called in the trades) on buildings build long before 1978. This sentence from the MPR article kind of chills me:
"Murphy says it'll also be tough to compete with builders who don't comply with the law, because they'll be able to undercut law-abiding builders on price."
The lead abatement techniques required by the new law are not labyrithine or unreasonable, but they do add a certain amount of administrative overhead - documentation is required now - and more time to set up and clean up. Time is money, and a firm that chooses to ignore the law and the safety standards will probably be able to underbid one that obeys the law. So, please, ask if the painters you hire are compliant. Pretty pretty please.
Some information on volatile organic compounds, and a few products that have low- or no-VOCs.
April
20
Tuesday
I asked Rachel to write up a little something about low- and no-VOC paints because we get questions about them all the time from clients. Like lead and asbestos, VOCs are one of those environmental pollutants that we are all warned about, but vaguely, something to be afraid of in a non-specific way. I went to the EPA site about VOCs - link here - and was pretty surprised with what I found. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are common airborne pollutants, and are found in quantities 2 to 5 times higher inside homes than without, regardless of where the houses were located: rural, urban, or industrial. They are present in many household chemicals, such as copiers, printers, cosmetics, some cleaning supplies, and of course, paint. (Their possible presence in cosmetics really made me mad, let me tell you.)
Unsurprisingly, most exposures to VOCs take place in short concentrated durations, such as when you paint a room. TigerOx Painting uses primarily Sherwin Williams, Hirshfield's, and Benjamin Moore paints, and both of those companies have a variety of paints that have either low- or no- VOCs. We have had good luck with SWP's "Duration Home" and "ProGreen" as well as Benjamin Moore's "Aura" and Hirshfield's "BEN". All of these are low-VOC paints. Although we haven't had a chance to paint with this yet, Benjamin Moore has a new paint called "Natura" which has no-VOCs. Another no-VOC paint is SWP's "Harmony".
In general these paints are not cheap: $30-$50 a gallon for us to buy, and that's with our contractor's discount. Paint costs have been rising across the board, partially because paint is a petroleum product, and you know how gas prices are, and partially because the US is in a resource competition with China and other industrializing nations for the metals and pigments that give paint its color. (You'll notice that deep-based paints cost more than white; color costs.) Manufacturing paints to be low- and no-VOC adds another price factor. I'm not saying they aren't worth the price. "Aura" has excellent coverage, so with a dark color, you will use less paint. "BEN" and "ProGreen" are both low-VOC, and are less expensive than some of the other paints mentioned. The upshot is that there are a variety of products to choose from to help minimize your exposure to indoor pollutants, and at a variety of prices.
A link to Trilby Busch's first article in a series about local master builder T.P. Healy. The house profiled in the article was painted by TigerOx.
April
8
Thursday
On page six of the most recent edition of the Wedge newspaper, Trilby Busch writes the first in a series about T.P. Healy's houses in the Wedge neighborhood in Minneapolis. The house she profiles is one TigerOx painted last summer for the current and long-time owners, Meg and Dennis Tuthill.
Every city has its own unique architectural flavor, and Healy's houses, well over a hundred in all, are a large influence on the evolving notion of a typical Minneapolis house. We've been lucky enough to work on few, and have been happy to lend our craft towards preserving and maintaining a Minneapolis architectural legacy. More articles about the Healy houses in the Wedge are forthcoming.
The first in a series about lead. A link to the new EPA pamplet, Renovate Right: Important Lead Hazard Information for Families, Child Care Providers and Schools.
April
1
Thursday
TigerOx Painting has maintained a Building Contractor's License in Minnesota for a number of years, which requires continuing education on topics like new building codes, legal issues for sub-contractors, and lead information. However, the lead information was never very good, and there was no federal standard. This left us in the uncomfortable position of really not knowing what to say when our customers asked us about lead. And questions about lead come up all the time, as they should. Exposure to lead during renovations is the leading cause of lead poisoning in children, and it's not so good for adults either.
But new laws have recently been enacted concerning lead safety in renovations! The EPA now requires that the pamphlet, Renovate Right: Important Lead Hazard Information for Families, Child Care Providers and Schools, be given to homeowners in any renovation that affects more than a 2 x 2 foot square area of paint on a structure built before 1978. (Click title for link.) The previous government pamphlet more or less said "don't do any painting ever," which is not helpful. The new pamphlet is so much better, because it explains how to go about painting safely. There are now certified classes in lead abatement, and a certification process for contractors. TigerOx Painting could not be more excited about this; our days of mumbling and gesturing inarticulately are over. (Well, okay, those days are never over, but they are when it comes to lead.) Jeremy and Anders have both taken the new lead certification course, and our Lead-Safe Certification is now pending. We hope to write a couple more blog posts about the new safety standards. Stay tuned!
More information about lead can be found at www.epa.gov/lead.
It takes us maybe longer than it should to cotton to these newfangled infernal machines, but TigerOx Painting has finally put up a business page on facebook.
A link to the article written for the Sherwin Williams trade magazine.
February
3
Wednesday
Almost 4 years ago now, Sherwin Williams published an article about TigerOx Painting for their trade magazine, Painting Contractor. It's maybe not hard-hitting Pulitzer-level journalism, but is a sweet little article, and the pictures are very nice. The cool thing about looking at this four years later is to see how little our staff has turned over. Stephanie and Nik both went on to other things, but Celeste and Tom are still with us. The four partners remain the same are better than ever.
