Crestwood Painting

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Painting Cedar Shake Shingles

Cedar shake shingle painting
Cedar Shake shingles can split if they haven’t been cared for.

Cedar shake shingles can split and curl when not properly cared for. While replacing damaged shingles sounds straightforward, here’s what to look out for.

Shingle Thickness

This is pretty easy – shingles are either thin (~3/8″) or thick (~5/8″). And you don’t mix them – unless you’re in a real pinch. You can get away with using thin shingles in a thick shingle installation (it will be noticeable) but you really can’t go the other way around – your neighbors will talk.

Shingle Texture

There are two considerations here: texture of the entire wall and texture of individual shingles. If the shingles on the face of a house are all generally cupped (curled) you’ll want to be aware that installing a new, flat shingle may look out of place. Sometimes this solves one problem and creates another; at that point you’ll have to decide what you can live with.

The other texture consideration is with the shingles themselves: older shingles have often been painted 46 times and so much of the original texture has been lost. We’ve seen grooved shingles that have been painted smooth. New cedar shingles very often have two surface treatments: one side is relatively smooth while the other is generally grooved. Easy to match grooved with grooved; a bit of a trick when new smooth doesn’t match old smooth.

A new shingle may really be smooth but it may just as easily be very rough depending on where and how it was milled. Is matching texture important to you? Important enough to sand individual shingles when necessary?

So by now you’ve thrown up your hands and bellowed “Oiy!” – can’t blame you. But as painting professionals it’s up to us to set the expectation with our customers – what you can expect and also what you can’t. That way there are no unmet expectations. Give us a call if you think we might be able to help.

Exterior painting fence kansas city crestwood

Filed Under: Home Maintenance Tagged With: exterior, shingles, wood

Painting Kitchen Cabinets

Updated Golden Oak - this young couple was delighted with the transformation.
Updated Golden Oak – this young couple was delighted with the transformation.

Golden Oak cabinets are so last century. But re-staining or painting kitchen cabinets is not as straight-forward as painting your living room. Here’s what to look for:

  • Material – there are trade-offs. Solvent-based (oil) materials have some advantages, but they have terrible odor. Not just your average terrible, but industrial strength, move out-of-your-house-for-three-days kind of terrible. A latex product solves the odor issue and the right product will solve the durability issue.
  • Application – there are some DIY kits available that say the product can be brushed on, but most professionals wouldn’t even think of brushing kitchen cabinets. Cabinets require a silky-smooth, even layer of paint – the kind of finish that can only be achieved with a sprayer, a practiced hand and a keen eye.

    painting kitchen cabinets before
    A close view of dated, dark and dingy cabinetry before painting. The previous homeowner was a heavy smoker –  major cleaning was required.
  • Durability – This is a balance between finish hardness, flexibility and adhesion. Too hard and the finish will chip under the heavy use common to kitchens. Poor adhesion means it’s even more likely to chip because it doesn’t stick very well. Flexibility means the finish has more “give” when dinged but at a certain point adhesion comes into question. Proper material selection is critical – you don’t want to learn six months later that there was a better choice available.
  • Blocking – A finish with good blocking properties will allow you to put a can of soup on the shelf and remove it a month later without leaving an impression or removing paint. Latex products have typically not had very good blocking properties, but there are niche materials available that block as well as oil-based paints.
  • Hardware – there’s no problem to replace existing hinges or door pulls provided the hole spacing is the same. If there are holes to fill (say you change from a door pull to a knob), you might consider texture. The hole will be filled and then sanded smooth; that repair will not match the texture of the surrounding wood. Usually not a deal-breaker, but a small detail that might affect your expectations.
  • Interiors – Melamine cabinet interiors are almost always masked to protect from paint; wood or composite materials are often painted, depending on age, condition and homeowner preference. Masking takes more time to make sure that paint goes only where it should.
  • Grain-filling – Oak is considered an open grain wood and maple is a closed grain (and therefore very smooth) wood; other species may have knots. If the texture of open grain or knotty wood doesn’t appeal to you the grain can be filled and sanded for a smoother appearance. This option involves a bit more time but it’s a practical way to minimize wood texture.  A caution, though – it’s reasonable to expect a “disguise” of the wood grain rather than a complete conversion to piano-smooth.

If you’d like to discuss the options available for your kitchen cabinets or bathroom vanity, please call Crestwood Painting today!

Filed Under: Painting Challenges Tagged With: cabinets, Interior, kitchen, wood

Painting Interior Trim – Joint Gaps

Interior Trim - gaps kansas city painter crestwood paintingSomething we see quite often on interior projects is the different styles of interior carpentry and the effects that those styles have on a painted finish. Traditional styles tend to hide the effects of wood movement from

  • Seasonal expansion and contraction
  • House settling or movement

This is because the different component pieces never join flat-edge to flat-edge. paint prep kansas city crestwood painting miter joint gapYou can see in the picture how this plays out. Older craftsmen were aware of wood movement and used that knowledge to “design-out” those effects. The wood still moves – it’s just not as noticeable to the eye.

Newer construction (“newer” being almost anything since 1940) is different. The post-war Baby Boom required lots of housing built quickly. For both economics and speed of construction miter joints were used. This was to minimize the number of pieces, the number of cuts and therefore the labor cost. Find more info on New Wood vs Old Wood.

The downside to all this efficiency is joint gaps. Buildings move and seasons change – gaps happen. interior trim crestwood painting kansas cityTo the right there’s a miter joint that’s opened up. Just below is a similar joint whose surfaces don’t match and therefore have an uneven appearance.

If you’ve got joint problems (sorry – painters’s humor) give Crestwood Painting a call today.

The painting prep process for this situation is similar to traditional joinery, but the long-term effects are very different. Scrape or sand excess paint or caulk, prime as needed and re-caulk the joint. Over time, these joints will open or mis-match – it’s just a consequence of design trade-offs.

Filed Under: Painting Challenges Tagged With: caulk, Interior, paint prep, trim, wood

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