Interior Painting - A Quick Fix to Your Home for the Holidays

With the holidays fast approaching, so are your holiday visitors. Is your home company-ready? If not, there's still time to do something about it, according to Debbie Zimmer, spokesperson for the Paint Quality Institute.

Why is it that we tend to spot deficiencies in our décor just before family and friends are due to arrive?

"In the throes of day-to-day living, most of us become somewhat blind to the condition of our rooms, including their color. But when it really counts, we take a harder, more critical look. All too often, we don't like what we see. When that happens, we are left with a couple of options: We can panic. . . or paint," says Zimmer.

Nothing changes the appearance of a home interior faster, or more effectively, than a fresh coat of interior paint, she says. And, giving a room an entirely new appearance at holiday-time can help lift your spirits and that of your guests.

What's especially nice about painting just prior to the holidays is that you can even choose colors that are appropriate for the season. . . as long as you'll still love them when the day is done.

Zimmer, an expert on color, offers some suggestions: "At Thanksgiving, fall colors that mirror the time of the year are most attractive -- harvest gold, ochre, brown, beige, and rust, for example. And nothing is cozier and more inviting at Christmas or New Year's than a special dinner set in a beautiful dining room decked out in a deep shade of red or green paint."

If you are really pressed for time, you can paint just an accent wall in a holiday-appropriate color, says Zimmer. "Painting even one wall can make a big difference in the appearance of a room and it can be done in a just a few hours. If you fall in love with the color, you have the option of painting the rest of the room at a later date, and if you happen to tire of it, you haven't invested much effort," she says.

Assuming that your pre-holiday painting is focused on rooms that will be filled with people, keep in mind that paints with higher sheen levels will be more stain-resistant and easier to clean. To make cleaning even easier, be sure to use durable top quality 100% acrylic latex interior paint.

And keep in mind that top quality latex paint offers another nice advantage: It has very low odor; plus, any minor odor it may have will dissipate very quickly. Even if you paint only a short time before your guests arrive, no one will catch a whiff of it!

So think about giving yourself and your family an unexpected gift this holiday season – the gift of color. The cost is very reasonable, and a beautifully painted room will provide pleasure not just at the holidays, but throughout the year!

For more information on color selection and interior painting for the Holiday season please contact 360renos

360renos
Dave Bennett
Owner
phone 613.429.5000
mobile 613.282.2124
email dbennett@360renos.ca
www.360renos.ca

"Everything you can imagine is real" - Pablo Picasso

Article with excerpts from Earth Times

Bathroom Wall Tile Updating

A main bathroom that was in need of a fresh new look from some tired old tiles.

We removed the old tiles and drywall down to the studs. Great news all was perfectly dry behind the old walls! Re-locating the plumbing to accommodate the new bath fixtures

Installed cement board for the new walls. Cement never goes mouldy so it is a great choice. Remember to use specialized screws for the installation of the cement board so they will not rust because you could have possible wall failure in the future.

New brushed nickel tile edging and 4"x4" tiles

Silicone caulking to complete all of the seams. New fixtures round out the updated style of this bathroom.

Dave - 360renos

Caulking - Don't Forget to Caulk

Excellent article from Dave Lowe of Top Notch Interiors of Lethbridge. They are so correct about the proper use of interior caulking to finish a room properly.

Enjoy the article -

Today’s generation of ‘Do It Yourselfer’ is very empowered. Big box hardware stores bombard marketing channels with campaigns focused on telling the target: “you can do it”.

Corporations have realized that it works. It works very well. I venture to say, with no market research to back me up, that there are more ‘do it yourselfers’ now than there have ever been before. People are prideful. We love to be able to complete tasks. What a great feeling it is to sit back and enjoy a freshly painted room! So when a commercial comes on and tells me that I can build a tree house on my own or with my child, I’m going to be that much closer to actually thinking it. However, just because I think I can do it, and probably can do it, does not mean that I should do it.

When I go into a new home or renovation site and discuss process with homeowners I get an idea of what they know about painting. I also, by nature of profession, critique the paint job of every home I enter into. So I have a pretty good statistical sample pot to develop a thesis or two in regards to what people know about painting.

One thesis is that Caulking is an extremely underrated task. People either don’t know about it, or don’t appreciate the difference maker that it is. The objective of this article is to either introduce you to caulking, or reinforce its importance.

Painted trimwork is the trim of choice these days because it is cheap, easy to work with, and paints very well. However, the homes and do it yourselfers that I have come across don’t realize the way it’s suppose to be painted. Convenience gets in the way. After all, it is a lot easier to paint the baseboards and trimwork before installation and call it complete.

Here are some scenarios that I come across:
A: Pre-finish the trimwork with 2 coats of paint and call it done.
B: Pre-finish the trimwork with 2 coats of paint. Once the installation is complete, putty the holes and touch them up. No caulking needed.
C: Paint the trimwork after installation with no caulking or puttying.

The problem with these very common scenarios is that the trimwork does not look finished. It’s not finished!

After installation there are numerous issues that need to be resolved and cannot be left:
1. Nail holes caused by the nail gun (volcanoes)
2. Cracks exist where trimwork meets trimwork or trimwork meets wall
3. Field/Scrarf joints

This article focuses on issue #2: Cracks exist where trimwork meets trimwork or trimwork meets wall.

The objectives behind caulking trimwork are:
1. Make it look like one piece
2. Create a seal (especially important on the top of baseboards)
3. Cracks break up pieces and look unfinished – fix that problem!

In a home the most common areas that need to be caulked are:

• where baseboard meets wall and inside corners of baseboard
• door jam casing meets wall
• door jam casing meets door frame
• vertical pieces of door frame meet horizontal pieces (both sides of door stop as well as the 90 degree joints of door stop
• window casing meets wall and vinyl window

In cases where custom multiple piece trim work is used, it is necessary to caulk all cracks where trim piece meets trim piece. Caulking needs to happen after installation, but before painting. A very common malpractice (even by home builders!!) is to buy the same color of caulking as the color of the trim and wait to caulk at the very end. This is extremely bad because the texture of dried caulking loves to collect dust and anything else in the air. The tube will probably say “non-yellowing” or something, but in a year or so it will look horrible due to the amount of dust and other particles the caulking absorbs. So make sure you paint over caulking at all times!

The most important characteristics that you should be looking for in caulking is paintability and ease of application. You don’t want a caulking that is too runny, or too thick. The best caulkings come out of the gun wet enough to wipe it with your finger once and leave a smooth transition. Don’t bother with buying those silly toothpaste tubes of caulking. They are a huge time waster. Make sure you are using a caulking gun, preferably dripless (go to your local paint expert store for more info).

Once the tube is loaded in the gun you need to cut the hole. CUTTING THE HOLE ISVERY IMPORTANT! It can be the difference between a clean caulking job, and a very messy caulking job. Cut a hole just smaller than 1/8" and your job shouldn’t be too messy. Without going into too much detail, the caulker needs to keep in mind that long, single, uninterrupted strokes in both application and wipe are essential to a good job. On the wipe, if too much caulking is collecting on your finger then you are applying too much (hole is too big or your passing too slow). If after the finger wipe the crack is just covered, with a nice small curved transition between materials, you have done a good job. A bad caulking job can be worse than no caulking job!

I encourage all who read this information to implement the use of caulking in your painting practices. It is essential to a perfect looking paint job, and is sure to result in compliments from the fussiest of people. Remember, caulk all cracks, paint over caulking at all times, and smooth transitions. Those are a professional’s secrets.

About the Author

Dave Low is president and CEO of Top Notch Interior Specialists Inc. With over 15 years of professional painting experience, Dave is extremely passionate about doing the job right, fast, and sharp.

That is why 360renos uses Dap Painters Caulk on every interior painting project. We want the homeowner to be satisfied!

Thank-you,
Dave - 360renos
613-429-5000 or
Cell 613-282-2124
dbennett@360renos.ca
www.360renos.ca

What Does VOC Mean?

Everything you wanted to know about the paint buzzword

The latest eco-buzzword around paint is VOCs, which stands for “volatile organic compounds.” When you break down the acronym, you have “volatile,” which means the substance is easily evaporated; “organic,” which tells us the material is carbon-based; and “compound,” which means it’s a mixture of various atoms.

VOCs are found in many common products, including pressboard furniture and the gas you put in your car. So, what makes them bad?

These pollutants contribute to the formation of both particulate matter and ground-level ozone, two of the main components that create smog,” Environment Canada spokesperson Sujata Raisinghani says. “Smog has been shown to have adverse impacts on human health.”

So, if VOCs are bad for our health, one would think they’d be regulated.

“In Canada, no mandatory requirements pertaining to VOCs in house paints are in force yet,” Raisinghani says.

The Canadian government has published regulations that propose mandatory VOC concentrations in architectural coatings such as paint, stains and varnishes. While these regulations are proposed to come into effect in January 2011, no formal date has been set.

Although we’re hearing more about VOCs these days, low- and zero-VOC paints have existed for a while. Early products, however, lacked the performance of traditional coatings on the market. There was also confusion about adding colour to zero-VOC paints, as the colourant itself had high concentrations of these compounds. Recent advancements, including the advent of waterborne colourants, improve product performance and contain no VOCs, allowing for greener paint that also outperforms traditional paint technology.

Until the regulations take effect, Canadians can make informed choices on environmentally friendly products by consulting the federal government’s EcoLogo program. For a coating to carry the EcoLogo, it must meet or be below certain VOC levels; for example, an interior flat paint must not exceed 50 g/l. The EcoLogo website contains a list of products that carry the seal.

from Canadian Home Workshop

Dave - 360renos

It's a Wrap

Pictures of some completed projects from the past few weeks to a basement framing project that has passed its Building Inspection.

Backlash forces Grits to drop eco fees

Provincial government's move follows Canadian Tire's rejection of 'botched' levy

By Robert Sibley, The Ottawa Citizen

Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/technology/Backlash+forces+Grits+drop+fees/3298397/story.html#ixzz0uGDWJW00

OTTAWA — The McGuinty government is set to scrap its recently imposed eco fees on thousands of consumer products in the wake of consumer anger and retailer irritation.

Environment Minister John Gerretsen is expected to announce today that the Liberals will eliminate the environmental fees on thousands of potentially hazardous products -- less than three weeks after retailers were required by Stewardship Ontario to start charging customers on new products from fluorescent bulbs to fire extinguishers.

(Randall Denley: Liberals ducking eco fee blame)

The government retreat followed an earlier announcement Monday by Canadian Tire, one of Canada's largest retailers, that it would no longer impose eco fees on its customers. Denouncing the new fees as "botched" and "confusing," Canadian Tire president Mike Arnett said the company would have nothing to do with the fees until government and industry figure out a system that "makes sense for everyone."

"Stewardship Ontario did not do a good job in preparing Ontarians for these new fees," Arnett said in a bluntly worded statement.

"They did not properly communicate why the fees exist or the importance of safely recycling these hazardous products."

Within hours of the Canadian Tire announcements there were several news reports -- all citing "government sources" -- indicating the provincial government was beating a hasty retreat on the eco fee issue.

On July 1 -- the same day the Harmonized Sales Tax came into effect -- Stewardship Ontario, a government-created but industry-led and funded agency charged with overseeing and paying for the recycling of ordinary and toxic waste, imposed an updated version of its hazardous products recycling program, effectively requiring retailers and manufacturers to pay eco-fees on thousands of new products besides those already on the list. Some retailers, including Canadian Tire, attempted to pass the fees on to consumers.

Ontario consumers, surprised at the sudden imposition of the fees, weren't buying it and reacted angrily. They blamed the McGuinty government. Last week, for example, 300 people denounced the new eco fees as yet another tax imposition with a demonstration outside Premier Dalton McGuinty's constituency office in Ottawa.

Retailers weren't pleased either. Canadian Tire was forced to apologize last week to customers for wrongly charging eco fees higher than those authorized. However, Canadian Tire executives decided they weren't going to take it anymore, and on Monday the company said it would not charge the new eco fees until, in Arnett's words, "a better system can be developed with Stewardship Ontario and the Government of Ontario."

Arnett said the rollout for the new fees was "poorly handled by all involved." The provincial agency responsibly for recycling -- Waste Diversion Ontario, which oversees Stewardship Ontario -- set up a "very complicated" fee system for "materials" instead of "products," which, according to Arnett, meant that two similar bands of cleaning products could have two different eco fees depending on slight differences in their ingredients.

Even more confusing was how retailers were left to interpret the fees as they saw fit, Arnett said. That meant "five different retailers may charge five different eco-fees for the same product -- all depending on how they interpret the very complicated fee structure." In Canadian Tire's case, the new eco fees affected some 8,700 products.

Arnett also acknowledged Canadian Tire "did not do a good job of implementing the fees." That failing, however, was largely due to the "complex" nature of the fees. "Although we quickly fixed any incorrect fees, we still have customers every day asking us why two nearly identical products have different fees."

The eco-fee system was set up in 2008 to have manufacturers and retailers collect monies to fund a government recycling program for diverting hazardous and toxic materials away from garbage dumps. Stewardship Ontario collects the eco fees from businesses that make and sell these kinds of products. The companies, in turn, decide which fees they pass on to consumers.

The problem in this case -- and what particularly angered consumers and frustrated retailers -- is that there was no public notice eco fees would be imposed on thousands more products -- everything from household cleaners, paint and aerosols to fire extinguishers, fluorescent bulbs and even fish bowls.

For its part, Stewardship Ontario, implicitly acknowledged the fee rollout wasn't handled well when it announced late Monday -- also after Canadian Tire's decision -- that it would proceed with "a plan to increase the accuracy, transparency and consistency of eco fees at point of sale."

With the approval of its oversight body, Waste Diversion Ontario, Stewardship Ontario said it will require companies that make or import products to provide product-related eco-fee information allowing the agency to create a searchable data base on its website that consumers can check regarding hazardous products.

"We have heard from consumers loud and clear," said Gemma Zecchini, Stewardship Ontario's chief executive officer. "In retrospect, consumers clearly were looking for information on how eco fees work, and we will initiate efforts to help them understand that."

Not surprisingly, the eco-fee issue was politicized. "This is yet another Dalton McGuinty tax grab," said provincial Tory leader Tim Hudak. NDP leader Andrew Horwath said. "The McGuinty government dropped the ball."

Canadian Tire, meanwhile, expressed concern about banning eco fees. "We are concerned in the face of this botched roll-out of July 1st fees that the most politically-expedient and short-term solution is to 'ban fees for consumers,'" Arnett said. "That would be the wrong move."

Consumers should be able to make informed choices about what they buy, including information regarding how much it costs to recycle the product, the Canadian Tire president said. If consumers are paying recycling fees up front, as they now do on many products, they should know and understand what they are paying for. "They should never had to pay for hidden fees -- deliberate or otherwise."

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/technology/Backlash+forces+Grits+drop+fees/3298397/story.html#ixzz0uGDaPApE