Sunday, February 4, 2007

Painting Basement Walls?

Question:
I am going to be painting my concrete foundations walls to help brighten my basement, but the walls are not very smooth (lines from the foundation forms, bolt holes filler, etc...).

Does anyone know any tricks on smoothing the walls before I paint them? I am not looking to get them super smooth, but want to take the high points down. I am hoping I do not have to take a grinder to the wall or chisel away and potentially leave larger holes.

Answer:
There are a couple of ways to mask imperfections that come to mind. One is to paint the walls using a true flat finish to soften the rough spots when the lighting hits them. The other is not so simple: They make a product called liner paper, which is a fiber based 36" non pasted wallpaper designed to mask some imperfections (maybe 90%). Once this liner paper is installed you basically have a blank canvas to work with. I've installed several liners over the years and have found them to work very well for painting or hanging wallpaper over the new surface.

How to handle wallpaper at doorway?

Question for Jerry:

I recently had a room wallpapered, and am now trying to figure out how to handle a doorway that goes from the wallpapered room into another. Currently, the wallpaper just ends right at the edge of the doorway, but already, the edge is starting to peel up some.

The previous wallpaper had one of those common plastic corner things over it, but I would like to avoid doing that again, since I think it looks ugly. I'm considering putting some molding around the door, but I'm trying to think if I have seen that anywhere before. Any input on this?

If I do put the molding around the door, should I just put it over the top of the paper, or do I want to try and cut the paper back a little bit?

Answer:
If the passageway is in a heavy traffic area I would recommend installing wood or plastic trim right over the paper. If the passageway is not in a heavily traveled area you may want to try trimming the paper back first by holding a razor knife at a 45 degree angle in an attempt to take the exposed edge of the paper and moving it behind the outside corner of the doorway. You can always try this first and if it doesn't hold up to the traffic you can then install the trim.