I have been the carpenters helper to a remodeler for only a few months. Our most recent job was to tear out a 75+ year old bathroom and put in a brand new one from the floor joists up. It’s a small full bath on the first floor of a very old farm house. Our new bathroom is dressed up with princeton mouldings, rosetts, and four feet of wanescotting. When my boss said he doesn’t paint, I jumped at the opportunity for a little extra work. After reading the recent priming article in FHB#161 I find myself wondering now if I should use a PVA primer on our drywall and wanescotting, or choose something else. This bath is only 41/2′ x 9′ although we have installed a new fan, moisture is definatly a consideration. There will also be a 7′ x 17″ set of built in pine shelving to be primed and painted. I need some advice so my boss and the homeowner are not dissapointed by oppened seams in the long run.
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I've done wainscott painting the wrong way then the right way.
the wrong way is not to back prime the planks....can you guess the right way?
I use the Zinsser "oil" base primer for the backs and will use it for the fronts.
On this house I'm in I back primed the 3/4" wainscott but haven't gotten around to the fronts yet( I have about a billion and one projects going all at once).
the bathroom its in has little ventillation right now other than an exhaust fan ( I have insulation stuck in the window opening (don't ask) and now just the lil' exhaust fan).
Still......the WS is stable and unseparated about nine months later.
In my last house the WS wasn't back primed and became a nightmare!
Be a wall
andy
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OH S--- !
We allready installed the the wanescotting. And it was not backprimed. Will we have to chalk this one up as a learning experience? Or can we somehow caulk the tops and bottoms in hopes of sealing off the backside of our timely, expensive, and painstaking installation ?
With Princeton's pieces, the wood is already pre-primed.
The PVA primer is for drywall. If you have other bare wood to prime, I recommend Ben Moore's product line. I like an oil primer on bare wood but their latex is good too.
Lightly sand with 180 to 220 and vacumn. tack the dust between coats for a super smooth finish that will geet attention - the good kind. A rough finish here will "snag the nylons" or other fine linens, not to mention any skin that comes in contact with painted surfaces, which is possible in such tight quarters.
BTW,
If you work and learn as well as you present yourself in writing and combined with your eager opportunism, you won't be the helper for long.
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I'll second the ben moore line.
Their Superspec latex enamel undercoat works great for DW as well as wood trim. Big bonus is it dries FAST and leaves a nice surface. For either latex or enamel.
http://www.benjaminmoore.com/wrapper_pg3.asp?L=prod&K=intprods&groupid=15&productid=69#article
and their Fresh Start Alkyd Enamel Underbody is a great oil primer, used it today to prime car siding that's going up as a cieling.
http://www.benjaminmoore.com/wrapper_pg3.asp?L=prod&K=intprods&groupid=15&productid=55#article
If the wainscotting is already installed, and was not primed first, then you may already be hosed. Bathrooms experience huge variability in humidity, and that is what causes wood to swell and shrink.
You're only hope is that, when you prime/paint it, the boards will be at their absolute dryest possible state -- their most shrunk size. Any added humidity will cause swelling, but the paint will cover all of the tongues at the wood's smallest shrink-size.
If it hasn't been installed, prime the front and back, and the tongues and grooves. And if the finished color scheme is different than your primer color, then finish-paint the tongues too.
Does this same advice hold true for MDF wainscoting? Does it also have to be backprimed?
Thanks for any advice.
MDF is one of the most stable materials you'll find. So, some will say no.
But I won't. MDF is made up of very tiny fibers, each of which has end grain on two ends. End grain absorbs moisture, and causes the fiber to swell.
If the entire piece is primed, this swelling will be minimized.
So, my answer is yes.
Vast projects should not be founded on half vast ideas.
For the drywall, I really like Zinser mildew resistant bathroom paint. It's self priming. For a bathroom I prefer the slight gloss rather than flat. Sand between coats so you don't get those little bumps that catch hair and lint when you try to wash the bathroom walls.
The paint can be tinted, but do pay attention to the warning on the can to use only 75 to 80% of the tint that the charts call for. The first time I tinted it I wanted peach and got pumpkin.