Late Night Primer Party

I spent yesterday prepping the back bedroom for paint, mostly by spending much of the day washing the walls.

I also had to apply quite a bit more caulk than I expected, so the whole process took longer than I thought it would.

But after dinner we put the first part of the first layer of primer on. I expect the wood will need three coats of primer (it seems to have very high tanins -- the primer I used is designed to cover high-tanin wood). I hope the upper walls only need two coats.

Let me explain that weird line to you. The paint does not seem to want to stick to the plaster (which is the original plaster with lath behind it and horsehair as reinforcement). Especially so when it has a skin on it rather than being completely dry -- run a roller over the skinned paint and it just peels right up and wraps around your roller. So I painted the bottom part of the wall then when Noel came through and painted the top, we left a gap so the paint would not straight-up peel off the wall.

Here's one spot where I reached up to pull a piece of fur off the wall (hey, it happens in this house) and a one-inch sheet of paint came off with it. Not good.

We had this problem in the dining room as well, and I still find it baffling. I'd be overjoyed to hear suggestions on making this not happen that do not involve skim-coating the room with drywall mud (paint store guy's suggestion). I guess long-term I don't care too much, because all the actual plaster in the house is coming down (it's a real hazard in an earthquake) and eventually it will not be an issue. But we are going to live with some of the plaster for the time being and I do not relish repainting rooms annually to deal with peeling paint.

We waited an hour, and then put another layer of paint on -- this time Noel used the roller on a stick and did the whole wall at once so no weird line (well, just slightly visible weird line because that area had only one coat of primer on it).

This morning I checked on the paint again, especially the paint over the wainscoating. I'm beginning to wonder how many layers of primer it will take before the wood stain stops bleeding through. Maybe I will just decide on a stopping point and leave it at that.

Today's plan is to do more caulking (the primer coat definitely showed me places where we needed more caulk) and another coat of primer, and then put a top coat on the walls, at the very least (and use that tester of paint on the wainscoating). I sure hope the wainscoating colour I chose is good because I really would rather make a quick trip downtown to get a gallon of paint rather than several trips to get testers and try them out over and over again.

posted by ayse on 09/15/10