The wasp nest was taken care of and yesterday our new windows were installed. That left me painting the plain wood frames today. As the paint shop inexplicably closed at 1 pm yesterday I had to go today to get the paint. I wanted a flat white paint thick enough so I wouldn't have to do more than one coat.
Well, apparently that paint doesn't exist. I was told you can't get paint that thick and flat paint can't be wiped clean so it's not as good for indoors. So I got a white pearl (that's the glossiness not the colour) latex paint and a 2 inch brush.
I'd already taped the inside and outside of the windows to make things go faster today (which takes longer and is more annoying than you'd think). Now, as to the writer portion of this story. If you've got a character doing any house painting with a brush and you haven't done such painting recently, here are things to consider.
1) Painting around the window handle is difficult, even if you've taped the handle so it won't get mucked up. I wanted the streaks to go length wise down the frame, but the handle was so low that those parts were a royal pain.
2) The paint brush has a slight angle to it to make corners easier.
3) After holding the brush for 5-10 minutes you hand starts to cramp so you have to keep changing how you hold it (or change hands. And painting with your off hand's not as hard as you'd think, just don't plan on doing the finishing strokes with it).
4) Painting a window over a sink is painful. I basically had one foot on the ladder an the other alternated between kneeling, standing and sitting on the sink to reach different places and alleviate the pain from the awkward positioning.
5) Also, windows near cabinets make doing the sides of the frames difficult. I kept painting bits of cabinet by mistake, and wiping that paint off invariably took some of the frame paint (as there wasn't enough room to maneuver).
6) Wait a few hours for the paint to dry and then spot paint areas that don't look good.
7) Oh, and when you clean the brush, don't leave it sitting upright in water. Rinse it under running water and dry it flat.
I actually managed to cover the frames well enough that with a bit of spot painting I won't need to do a full second coat. Yay!
2 comments:
next time take the handles off first. :)- karin
You can do that? But the real problem was the parts of the handles attached to the window, they're wide bubbles that only leave a quarter inch between them and the frame, so they're tough to tape over and tough to paint around.
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